The Buzz: The JJA Podcast

The 2025 JJA Awards just dropped, and in this special episode The Buzz is breaking down the winners in some of the leading categories. 

Host Lawrence Peryer is joined by guests Neil Tesser and Mark Ruffin to discuss lifetime achievements, standout performers, and why some names keep winning year after year.

Both guests bring unique perspectives - Mark from his years as a writer and radio programmer and personality, Neil from his work...

Three accomplished jazz authors share their journeys from traditional publishing to successful independent careers. Join host Lawrence Peryer as Debbie Burke, Steve Cerra, and Rick Mitchell reveal the tools, economics, and creative freedom they've found in self-publishing. Learn how these writers are reshaping the jazz book world by taking control of their work - from manuscript to marketing. 

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This conversation between JJA members Bob Blumenthal, Ricky Ricciardi, and Fumi Tomita explores how jazz research has evolved through digital transformation. 

Ricciardi describes his journey researching Louis Armstrong's career, moving from physical archives and interviews for his first book to primarily digital resources like newspaper databases, digitized periodicals, and ancestry records for subsequent works. 

Tomita discusse...

Tomas Peña, jazz journalist of breadth with unique ties to his Puerto Rican heritage, and José Massó, best known as a Boston broadcaster (and Jazz Hero) who takes a multi-media approach to full communication of the arts in life -- speak to JJA member Michael Ambrosino, producer of Los Olvidados, a radio documentary about Pan-Latin influences on jazz. 

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Will Friedwald does it all -- books on Sinatra, Nat "King" Cole, jazz vocalists and the Great American Songbook; articles in publications including the Wall Street Journal; his own broadcasting platform and Substack, Slouching Towards Birdland. He speaks as winner of the 2024 JJA Jazz Award for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz Journalism to Chicago-based writer, broadcaster and JJA board member and Neil Tesser.

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Playing The Changes: Jazz in An African University and On the Road is the account by Catherine and Darius Brubeck (daughter-in-law and son of Dave Brubeck) of their 25-year sojourn in South Africa, where they expanded the jazz landscape, establishing a music program at University of KwaZulu-Natal. Todd S. Jenkins interviews the couple in this latest Author's Series episode of The Buzz: The Podcast of the Jazz Journalists Assoc...

The Jazz Omnibus: 21st-Century Photos and Writings by Members of the Jazz Journalists Association is a 600-page anthology published in hardcover, paperback and ebook editions by Cymbal Press. In this edition of The Buzz, Lawrence Peryer interviews the team that put it together -- editor David Adler, copy chief Terri Hinte, editorial advisor and JJA president Howard Mandel, and Cymbal Press principal Gary Stager about the intentions...

Rayna Mathis has edited the monthly publication of Seattle's Earshot Jazz for four years; Chrys Roney became CEO and editor-in-chief of Hot House Jazz Guide, serving the New York metropolitan area, just five months ago -- and each of them enthuses about the community-serving aspects of their editorial project. Howard Mandel notes that its been rare for Black women to head jazz publications, and a gratifying development. 

Don’t ...

Pianist, composer-improviser and educator Ann Tappan lives far from the madding crowd, outsize Bozeman, Montana, maintaining an active career including international forays. Having made the scene in NYC and San Francisco, she speaks with authority about the challenges and pleasures of making art and life outside the urban milieu commonly assumed for jazz.

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Essayist Farah Jasmine Griffin, whose collection In Search of a Beautiful Freedom won the JJA's 2024 Jazz Book of the Year: History, Criticism and Culture,  talks about her focus on jazz and its relevance across many realms of thought, with Fiona Ross, member of the JJA's book committee and founder of Women in Jazz Media.

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Music historian and author Ashley Kahn and producer Zev Feldman, "the Jazz Detective," speak with host Rick Mitchell on the journalism and historical importance of albums of historical jazz (those recorded more than 10? 20? 30? years ago?)  releases, and the particular value to them of liner notes. All pay homage to the legacy of Blue Note Records/Mosaic Records producer and writer Michael Cuscuna, who died in April at th...

Dutch scholar Walter van de Leur is the author of Jazz and Death: Reception, Rituals, and Representations, a fascinating study that enlightens  the music from a unique angle. Fiona Ross, member of the Jazz Journalists Association's Book Committee, interviews Walter, touching on New Orleans funerals, Chet Baker, and the rumor that jazz itself is dead. 

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Easily Slip Into Another World is Pulitzer Prize-winning composer/reeds and winds instrumentalist/bandleader Henry Threadgill's vivid autobiography, co-authored by Brent Hayes Edwards, a literary scholar teaching at Columbia University. Edwards is interviewed by JJA board member Bob Blumenthal, chair of the nominating committee for JJA Jazz Books of the Year. 

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Rhythm Man: Chick Webb and the Beat That Changed America is an in-depth look at  highly influential and popular, 'til now under-celebrated bandleader, by Ms. Crease, whose prior books are lively portraits of Duke Ellington and Gil Evans. Bob Blumenthal, critic, author (Saxophone Colossus: A Portrait of Sonny Rollins)  chairs the Jazz Journalists Association's Book Awards committee.

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In an episode of The Buzz interviews with authors of 2024 nominees for Book of the Year Awards,  Los Angeles-based Steve Isoardi, author of The Dark Tree about pianist Horace Tapscotts unique musicians/community organition UGMAA, speaks with Bob Blumenthal, JJA board member and chair of the Book Awards committee.

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