NORTHAMPTON — Pianist, composer and band leader Paul Arslanian has been named a Jazz Hero by the Jazz Journalists Association in its 26th annual recognition of “activists, advocates, and altruists of jazz” across the United States.
Since 2001, the Jazz Journalists Assoc., a nonprofit organization with 250 international members, has identified and hailed individuals from local jazz communities across America who go beyond their basic responsibilities to sustain and expand musical activities.
For the past 16 years, Arslanian has led the Northampton Jazz Workshop, a year-round organization that brings leading jazz musicians from New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia to Northampton nearly every week to perform with the Green Street Trio. Performances are followed by Arslanian-curated jam sessions featuring students, professors, teachers, and other local jazz musicians.
The presentation of Arslanian’s Jazz Hero certificate will be held at The Drake in Amherst on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. before the regularly scheduled Northampton Jazz Workshop featuring special guest, saxophonist Chris Cheek. Ruth Griggs, president of the Northampton Jazz Festival and a 2025 JJA Jazz Hero and Bonnie Johnson, host of Colors of Jazz on WICN in Worcester, a 2024 JJA Jazz Hero, will be in attendance for the award presentation. The Northampton Jazz Workshop is open to the general public with a $10 cover fee.
“Sustaining the Northampton Jazz Workshop over the years hasn’t been easy,” said “Arslanian. Typically, jam session formats can be pretty short-lived, but the combination of being within driving distance of major cities, the large number of professors, teachers and students of jazz in the area plus a hip and generous jazz audience has kept this thing going beyond what I thought possible when I started it at the Green Street Café back in 2010.”
Arslanian, of Northampton, is also an advisor to the Northampton Jazz Festival, having served as Executive Producer for 14 years. In that capacity, he led the creative direction of the festival, seeking out and booking jazz musicians as well as directing all aspects of producing the concerts on Jazz Fest Day each year.
In 2018, Arslanian founded the Jazz Artists in the Schools program with the JFK Middle School and Northampton High School. An educational program of the Northampton Jazz Festival, Arslanian collaborates with the school band directors to bring in working jazz musicians each semester for workshops and clinics with students. Funded through donations, it exposes young jazz musicians to professionals, allowing them to experience and play at a level not afforded in the normal classroom environment. Arslanian works closely with the band directors to select artists who will support and complement the students’ specific music needs.
NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton Jazz Festival will co-present the New York-based quintet Civil Disobedience: Blue Note Records in the Progressive ’60s in a one-night-only concert at the Iron Horse on Sunday, April 12 at 7 p.m.
The Northampton Jazz Festival has expanded its live jazz offerings beyond its signature two-day festival in late September. It now co-presents visiting jazz artists in one-night-only concerts by partnering with area performance venues. In doing so, the Jazz Festival is able to bring more world-class jazz musicians to the region year-round.
Civil Disobedience, created by New York bassist David Ambrosio, is a project that has been carefully crafted to showcase the compositions of progressive jazz maestros from the late-’60s Blue Note Era, such as Bobby Hutcherson, Jackie McLean, Stanley Cowell, Harold Land, Joe Chambers, Duke Pearson, and James Spaulding. Aside from leader Ambrosio, members of the band include Donny McCaslin on tenor and soprano saxophones, Jason Palmer on trumpet, Bruce Barth on piano, and Rudy Royston on drums.
In a reflection of a past era marked by social upheaval and civil unrest, the compositions that form the core of Civil Disobedience’s playlist lay dormant for decades, unheard and unappreciated at the time of their creation. More than 50 years later, America is at a crossroads again, witnessing significant parallels in social movements reminiscent of that transformative era. It is against this backdrop that the once-overlooked music of the late-’60s Blue Note Era gains a newfound relevance.
“David Ambrosio is going to bring a band of some of the best musicians on the New York scene today — Donny McCaslin, Bruce Barth, Rudy Royston, and Jason Palmer — who will play their hearts out in sharing this music of protest and civil unrest on the Iron Horse stage,” said Ruth Griggs, president of the Northampton Jazz Festival. “Musicians are poets, and I’m grateful that these fine musicians are coming to Northampton to play this poetry of protest during such an unsettling time in our nation’s history.”
Ambrosio is bringing his band to Western Mass. on a mini-tour, which includes a teaching workshop at Amherst College on Sunday afternoon, April 12, and with Ambrosio as a sideman in a Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares concert in Holyoke on Saturday, April 11.
The April 12 concert at the Iron Horse will preview the first album produced by the group, titled Civil Disobedience, with a release date of May 16.
NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton Jazz Festival has welcomed two new board members who bring broad skills and experience in marketing, design, music production, and fundraising.
The new members are John Anz, who joined in January, and Jack Brown, who came on board in January 2025.
“Their skills are a tremendous complement to the board, providing us with deep experience in the areas of fundraising, music production, design, and marketing,” said Ruth Griggs, president of the board of directors.
Jack Brown
Anz is currently director of Development & Community Engagement for the Loomis Communities. An alumnus of Williston Northampton School and Trinity College in Hartford, he moved permanently to Western Mass. in 2002 from his native New York City and deeply involved himself in the local music, arts, and culture scene. He has served on several boards of arts organizations, including the Northampton Community Music Center and the South Hadley Cultural Council, including two years as chair. He has also created, produced, and presented live music in the area as co-chair of the SHOWCASE South Hadley arts and culture festival and, under JAzz Productions, produced Music Mondays Cafe at the Gaylord Memorial Library in South Hadley.
After careers in college coaching and real estate management, Anz has been in the development and philanthropy fields of nonprofit fundraising for more than 20 years, including music and arts organizations such as Springfield Symphony Orchestra and Berkshire Hills Music Academy.
Brown is Marketing director at the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce and the Hampshire County Regional Tourism Council. He has worked in Northampton’s cultural circles for three decades as an artist, writer, and musician, and promotes the region in his current role. He creates and executes the strategies for marketing to constituents of both organizations across all digital, social and print communications channels.
Brown’s expertise also includes content creation, graphic design, and setting and analyzing marketing metrics across all channels. He is also a musician (guitarist), illustrator, and graphic designer, having earned a bachelor of fine arts degree at the University of Hartford’s Hartford Art School.
NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton Jazz Festival will present the legendary jazz guitarist Peter Bernstein with his quartet in a one-night-only concert at the Drake in Amherst on Saturday, March 7 at 8 p.m.
The Northampton Jazz Festival has expanded its live jazz offerings beyond just a two-day festival in late September. It now co-presents visiting jazz artists in one-night-only concerts by partnering with area performance venues. In doing so, the Jazz Festival is able to bring world-class jazz musicians to the region year-round.
“I am a guitarist myself, and have wanted to invite Peter Bernstein to perform at the Drake for some time,” said Lincoln Allen, manager of the Drake. “With this partnership with the Jazz Festival, we both market the concert to our audiences, so we’re more sure to get a large, savvy jazz audience as a result, which is the goal for us both.”
A New York City native, Bernstein has been playing and recording since 1990, when he first appeared on recordings with Lou Donaldson and the organ trio of Larry Goldings and Bill Stewart, a group still touring and recording today. Bernstein has played on festival, concert, and club stages worldwide and has appeared on over 300 recordings, 14 under his own name. Bernstein’s other associations and collaborations include Jimmy Cobb, Dr. Lonnie Smith, David “Fathead” Newman, Brad Mehldau, Etta Jones, Melvin Rhyne, Diana Krall, Bobby Hutcherson, Lee Konitz, Nicholas Payton, George Coleman, and Sonny Rollins. His latest recording on the Smoke Sessions label is Better Angels, featuring Brad Mehldau, Vicente Archer, and Al Foster.
Performing with Bernstein at the Drake on March 7 will be Aaron Goldberg on piano, Vicente Archer on bass, and Joe Farnsworth on drums. Farnsworth, a South Hadley native, headlined the 2023 Northampton Jazz Festival with his “Max Roach Centennial Celebration,” a sold-out performance at the Academy of Music.
“We’re thrilled to bring the great Peter Bernstein to the Valley with his equally talented bandmates,” said Ruth Griggs, executive director of the Northampton Jazz Festival. “We especially love having Joe Farnsworth back in town; he brings a love and enthusiasm for Western Mass. like no other jazz musician I’ve ever seen.”
Tickets cost $30 in advance and $35 at the door. For more information and tickets, visit thedrakeamherst.org.
Amherst Oyster Bar is the sponsor of the Peter Bernstein Quartet. The restaurant will donate 20% of dinner service profits on March 7 to the Northampton Jazz Festival. In addition, guests who show their tickets to the Peter Bernstein Quartet while dining at Amherst Oyster Bar on March 7 will receive six complimentary oysters per ticket (selection determined by Amherst Oyster Bar).
NORTHAMPTON — Ruth Griggs, Northampton Jazz Festival board president, has been named a Jazz Hero by the Jazz Journalists Assoc. in its 25th annual recognition of “activists, advocates, altruists, aiders, and abettors of jazz” across the U.S.
Griggs has led the Northampton Jazz Festival since 2017, when she reformed the festival board, reinstated its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, and planned the first festival since 2015, which took place in 2018 at various venues throughout downtown Northampton.
The Jazz Journalists Assoc., convened in 1987, is a nonprofit organization with 250 international members that provides creative and educational resources to individuals that forward the American art form known as jazz. The association offers events, podcasts, webinars, promotional and educational resources, and master classes to musicians, promoters, educators, broadcasters, journalists, photographers, and writers in the genre of jazz.
Since 2001, the Jazz Journalists Assoc. has identified and hailed individuals from local jazz communities across America who go beyond their basic responsibilities to sustain and expand on musical activities. The association believes Jazz Heroes are essential to the health of the overall jazz ecosystem and supports local efforts to celebrate them. The 2025 Jazz Heroes campaign is concurrent with the 30th annual Jazz Journalists Assoc. Jazz Awards for jazz musicians.
Griggs was also named a Difference Maker by BusinessWest in 2022 for her decades-long career as a marketing strategist and her leadership of the Northampton Jazz Festival, which has become a respected organization, attracting thousands to downtown Northampton each September.
A virtual gala celebrating the 29 Jazz Heroes of 2025 will be held on Thursday, April 17, and an in-person presentation of Griggs’ Jazz Hero certificate will be held locally at a later date.
NORTHAMPTON—The Northampton Jazz Festival will bring more than 50 musicians from around the world to downtown Northampton on Friday, Sept. 27 and Saturday, Sept. 28.
The weekend’s events begin with two student jazz combos from the University of Connecticut and UMass Amherst performing at Pulaski Park the afternoon of Sept. 27, followed by an evening of live jazz at breweries, bars, and restaurants throughout downtown Northampton. Free performances will continue at five locations on Saturday, Sept. 28.
The full lineup of free Northampton Jazz Festival is available at northamptonjazzfest.org.
The headliner for this year’s festival is Anat Cohen Quartetinho, performing at the Academy of Music on Saturday, Sept. 28 at 7:30 p.m. Anat Cohen is a Grammy-nominated, award-winning clarinetist who has created an intimate and joyful sound with her ensemble, Quartetinho. The ensemble of virtuosos includes bassist Tal Mashiach, pianist/accordionist Vitor Gonçalves, and vibraphonist/percussionist James Shipp.
Her concert is the only ticketed event of the festival; tickets cost $35 to $55 plus ticketing fees, available at aomtheatre.com or at the Academy of Music box office Tuesday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. Student tickets cost $20 plus fees.
“Anat Cohen inspired us to bring artists from countries around the world to the festival this yearm” said Ruth Griggs, president of the board of the Northampton Jazz Festival. “The magic of Quartetinho’s music springs from Anat and Tal’s Israeli roots blended with Vitor’s Brazilian influence. Combined with their virtuosity and creativity as musicians, this results in absolutely delightful music.”
Griggs said the festival board wanted to build on this and represent as many nations as possible at this year’s event, so musicians will come from India, Argentina, Cuba, Palestine, and Cameroon to downtown stages. “So we’ve themed this year’s festival ‘Jazz Without Borders.’ We think it will be a meaningful and joyful experience to hear the voices of true world musicians.”
Leading up to festival weekend, the Northampton Jazz Festival will once again partner with the Downtown Northampton Assoc. in creating Jazzy Arts Night Out on Friday, Sept. 13. Five local musicians will play at downtown locations from 5 to 8 p.m. as follows: pianist Rob Fontana at CLICK Workspace (6 to 8 p.m.), guitarist Robby Roiter at Assemble, pianist Sonny Raymond and guitarist Charlie Mitkowski at Ten Thousand Villages, vibraphonist Bruce Kelly at Michaelson’s Gallery, and singer Elena Ciampa at PINCH.
The performance schedule for all events is subject to change.
Now in its 13th year, the Northampton Jazz Festival brings more than 2,000 visitors to the city of Northampton. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation funded by local businesses, organizations, foundations, and individuals, which makes it possible to provide free live music to the general public.
“We are so appreciative of our local sponsors and donors for helping to make this festival happen each and every year,” Griggs said. “In this day of ever-increasing costs, we are committed to bringing the magic of live music to folks in downtown Northampton free of charge, hoping to lift spirits and bring some joy.”
Volunteers are needed to staff the Friday and Saturday events. To take part, visit northamptonjazzfest.org/volunteer.
NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton Jazz Festival will kick off its 2024 festival season with a documentary film, Buster Williams Bass to Infinity, on Thursday, June 13 at 7 p.m. at Northampton Center for the Arts, 33 Hawley St.
The 2021 film directed and produced by Adam Kahan tells the story of Buster Williams, an ambitious and courageous teenage bass player who seized opportunity after opportunity to play as a sideman with jazz musicians across the globe at the very top of their game. It is told with the infamous, reserved pride of the bass player, the musician cited as the glue to any band — the one who makes everyone else sound good.
On a deeper level, the film explores the intangible qualities of America’s original art form — the universal music known as jazz — as told by Williams and other jazz musician greats. In the film, Williams is joined by, and plays with, some of the greatest living contributors to the music: Benny Golson, Herbie Hancock, Rufus Reid, Christian McBride, Larry Willis, Carmen Lundy, Kenny Barron, and Lenny White.
After the screening, Kahan will lead a Q&A session with the audience, joined by Williams’ longtime friend and colleague, Avery Sharpe, the world-renowned bassist, composer, arranger, and bandleader, who lives in Western Mass.
Kahan is a filmmaker, musician, and human-rights activist who has made multiple documentaries, often focusing on artists and musicians, as well as short narrative and experimental films.
Living in New York City since 1968, Williams has played, recorded, and collaborated with jazz giants such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Miles Davis, Nancy Wilson, Art Blakey, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and countless others.
Tickets cost $15 in advance on Eventbrite (click here) or $20 at the door. There will be a guest reception at 6 p.m. For more information, visit northamptonjazzfest.org/jazz-film-night or facebook.com/northamptonjazzfest, or email [email protected].
NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton Jazz Festival has welcomed two new board members who bring broad skills and deep experience in entrepreneurship, marketing, community organizing, and music from world cultures. They are Ricard Torres-Mateluna, who joined last month, and Jillian Duclos, who joined the board in September 2023.
“I am thrilled to add these two dynamic and energetic individuals to the Northampton Jazz Festival board of directors. In a very short time, they have both contributed much to the organization,” said Ruth Griggs, president of the board. “Their ideas are fresh, realistic, and are helping us expand the depth and scope of our offerings this September, like adding children’s programming, more jazz events in September, and bringing musicians of world cultures to the stage.”
Jillian Duclos
After earning a bachelor’s degree in politics at Mount Holyoke College as a Francis Perkins Scholar in 2017, Duclos became a grass-roots organizer, a driver of workforce development, and then a business owner. Now, as executive director of the Downtown Northampton Assoc., she facilitates collaboration with city leaders, downtown organizations, and community members to drive economic development for downtown Northampton and provide a much-needed safety net to local and small businesses who anchor the community. On the Northampton Jazz Festival board, Duclos looks forward to using her experience to explore the best ways all can work together to make Northampton thrive.
Ricard Torres-Mateluna
Torres-Mateluna is a brand and marketing strategist who thinks with a global perspective and seeks solutions at the local level. Over his more than 20 years in the field, he has successfully worked toward uplifting educational entities and nonprofit organizations, having worked in advertising agencies and startups — large and small, at home and abroad — run by people from all backgrounds. His current role is vice president of Marketing and Communications for the Springfield-based human services agency Viability Inc.
Torres-Mateluna has been a jazz lover since childhood and is also a member of the editorial board and U.S. correspondent for Papeles de Jazz magazine in his native Chile. He holds a double bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications from Universidad ARCIS, Chile, and a master’s degree in literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz. As a first-generation college student and immigrant, he understands intimately the challenges ‘first’ groups face and uses that empathy and perspective to create solutions that effectively incorporate everyone. “The only way a brand, a campaign, or a strategy can be successful is by truly connecting with people,” he said.
Bryan Lynch performs at the 2021 Jazz Festival in Northampton.
Ruth Griggs is a firm believer in the power of jazz.
She says this brand of music has the ability to energize people and lift their spirits. It also has the ability to bring people, and a community together, said Griggs, who had seen this phenomenon at work in Northampton during the early years of its annual jazz festival.
And she also saw what was missing when the festival took a three-year pause toward the end of the last decade, and that’s why she became instrumental — that’s an industry term — in not only bringing the festival back to Northampton in 2018, but bringing it to more of Northampton, meaning more venues across this thriving arts community.
In fact, she was honored earlier this year by BusinessWest with its Difference Makers award for her efforts to bring the jazz festival back to the Northampton — and the region.
“Live music helps lift people’s spirits and it just gives them a positive feeling; these are professional musicians, they know what they’re doing, and it’s a real pleasure for the audience to be able to experience that,” said Griggs, adding that there will be plenty to experience at the 2022 Northampton Jazz Festival set for Sept. 1-Oct. 1.
A number of local and regional artists are scheduled to perform, she said.
“On Friday night, we have what we call the Jazz Strut, held at Pulaski Park and six different breweries and restaurants, throughout downtown; there is free jazz at these establishments all night long,” said Griggs, listing venues ranging from the the park to the Northampton Brewery; from Spoleto to the Wurst Haus.
“Jazz Fest Day will be on Saturday,” she went on. “World-class musicians are playing at no charge to the public. They’ll be playing in a variety of venues in and around Pulaski Park this year.”
The main stage act, the Ron Carter Quartet, will play at the Academy of Music on Saturday. It is the one paid performance; patrons are required to buy tickets online before the show, she said, adding that ticket sales are on a record pace.
The Northampton Jazz Festival was started in 2011 by a group of enthusiasts who were looking for something to replace the “Taste of Northampton” as a way to bring people — and energy — to the streets of Northampton. The festival was staged in the Armory Street Parking Lot and had a five-year run before losing steam.
After a three-year absence, momentum started to build to bring the festival back, with Amy Cahillane, executive director of the Downtown Northampton Association, taking the lead.
“Amy had come to me in 2017 and said ‘people are talking about this jazz festival. I’m not too familiar with it, but they are really looking for live jazz downtown. Is there any way it could be brought back?’ said Griggs. “And, long story short, with Amy’s impetus, we brought it back.”
Griggs told BusinessWest that the weather for the end of September can be hit or miss, but otherwise it is a perfect weekend for the festival, with little else on the calendar to compete with the event. She is predicting large crowds and large amounts of energy.
“The festival adds a sense of vitality and energy, like things are happening here, and that’s so important after what we’ve been through with COVID,” said Griggs. “It’s important for people to see there is creativity and artistry that’s happening in Northampton that is accessible, participial, and professional. It’s good music. We’re really happy to be a part of that for people that live here as well as for people that are coming in from out of the area.”
Indeed, not only is the festival creating a stronger sense of community, but it is drawing people into the city. Griggs told BusinessWest that with the increased number of ticket sales, she anticipates a higher volume of visitors this year.
“Maybe they (tourists) have known about Northampton or have stopped in once or twice; maybe they haven’t stopped into the city before, but I hope that when people stumble across this jazz festival, they are just absolutely delighted by it. I just hope to bring more people to Northampton than we ever have before.”
NORTHAMPTON—After a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the Elliot Ross Memorial Jazz Artists in the Schools program has returned to Northampton High School with five guest musicians teaching four sessions to students in the Jazz and Rock Improvisation Workshop.
The visiting musician teaching program is solely funded through donations from family and friends of the late Elliot Ross, a musician and graduate of the high school. Ross died at age 21 in November 2018. By request of the Ross family, the Northampton Jazz Festival established the Jazz Artists in the Schools program at Northampton High School the following year.
Donations to the program now top $15,000 and make it possible for students of music at the high school to gain insight, tips and techniques from professional, working musicians.
Led by band director Paul Kinsman, the program is a collaboration between Kinsman and Northampton Jazz Festival’s creative director and producer Paul Arslanian.
“I am so grateful for all the guest lecturers Paul Arslanian is bringing in, and the Ross family that has kept this program going,” said Kinsman. “It’s really important that we keep jazz in the schools, and this has really helped us come back strong after two years when we were silenced.”
This spring, five visiting musicians have visited the high school to teach four sessions each of Kinsman’s Jazz and Rock Improvisation Workshop, an elective scheduled during normal academic hours. Each guest musician has led a clinic and workshopped with the students on various topics around the art of improvisation to help hone their skills.
“Jazz as a genre of music is so diverse and so wide that having a different guest musician come in every week has really exposed me to different ideas that I can absorb and then incorporate into my improvisations,” said Ilan Bryant, a pianist and senior at the school. “I have also been surprised by how the diversity of the other student musicians around me has helped me grow in this class.”
The guest musicians have included Evan Arntzen, a jazz clarinetist and saxophonist who received his master’s from the Jazz Arts program at The Manhattan School of Music this spring; George Kaye, a lifelong professional jazz bassist; Gabe Childs, a guitarist and recent graduate of the Berklee School of Music; Justin Esiason, a professional trumpeter and a graduate in music at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Dave Haughey, a professional cellist, composer, teacher and improviser.
“For me, starting out improvising, listening to all of the greats play, it was really frustrating to me because it wasn’t as easy to play as they made it sound,” said Bryant. “So, to actually have seasoned musicians come in and break down improvising in all these different parts makes me appreciate how difficult, how complicated and how interesting it is, but it has also allowed me to take steps in the right direction to work on my own solo.”
The visiting musicians were given the opportunity to teach students different aspects of improvisation given their own professional experience. Topics included melodic variations in improvisation, harmonic considerations in improvisation, the role of guide tones and voicings in improvisation and the role of rhythm in improvisation.
By Reviving a Beloved Event, She’s Creating a More Vibrant Downtown
Leah Martin Photography
Ruth Griggs was having coffee with Amy Cahillane one day in 2017, when Cahillane, who had recently taken charge of the Downtown Northampton Assoc., posed a question.
“She said, ‘what do you think about the Jazz Festival?” Griggs recalled. “I said, ‘what do you mean?’”
Cahillane told Griggs that, in her interactions with people downtown, she kept getting asked questions like, “can we have the Jazz Festival back? We miss live music downtown. What happened to the festival? Can you get it back?”
Griggs had been involved in the first incarnation of the Northampton Jazz Festival, from 2011 to 2015, after returning to her hometown following a three-decade marketing career in New York City. “I went to the shows, and once they got to know I was a marketing professional, I kind of was an advisor to them. I was never on the board, but I was definitely an advisor and helped them out quite a bit, the last two years in particular.”
Then the festival went away for two years, and Cahillane was angling to get Griggs and others who had supported it in the past to bring it back to life, promising to help build stronger relationships between the festival and city leaders and boost marketing and fundraising efforts.
“Having a strong presence downtown and good relationships downtown was really important to me, and I also know all the jazz people who knew how to put on that festival, some of whom had been involved in previous festivals,” Griggs said. “So I set to work to rally some support.”
The biggest challenge at the time, she said, was not losing the event’s 501(c)(3) status, which had been achieved right before the final festival in 2015. “If you let a 501(c)(3) go without any kind of documentation to the feds or the state for three years, it’s gone. And I could not let that happen.”
So Griggs and others formed a board, pulled the festival back from the brink, and started planning for the return of the event in 2018. Oh, and that board put Griggs in charge.
“I really care about the vitality and the economy of Northampton. I’m hoping the Northampton Jazz Festival will continue to reaffirm and reinforce the unique entertainment value that Northampton offers.”
It made sense — since returning from New York in 2011, she had built a marketing firm, RC Communications, that focused on small to mid-sized businesses and especially nonprofits, which are, in many ways, the lifeblood of the region. She has also been a board member with the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce for the past six years and is currently its immediate past vice president.
“I am a marketing strategist by trade, and, as such, I am good at seeing the big picture, keeping my eye on the vision and mission of an organization,” Griggs told BusinessWest. “When you combine that with my work in nonprofits over the last 15 years, that adds up to the type of experience that enables me to lead a nonprofit, which, of course, is what the Jazz Fest is at the end of the day.”
Her leadership in the chamber and her role as an entrepreneur with RC Communications have helped her build a wide network in the business community, she added.
Ruth Griggs announces from the stage of the Academy of Music in Northampton during the headline Jazz Festival concert last October. Photo by Julian Parker-Burns
“I also just have a knack for getting things done; I am a doer,” she went on. “Fundraising for the Jazz Fest, which is a big part of what I do, benefits from these relationships. As president of the board, I oversee all operations of the festival and keep everyone’s eye on the ball, but I have a particular focus on marketing and fundraising and community relations, with the help of Amy Cahillane.”
Within that model, she leaves the choosing and booking of the musicians and the running of the performances to five producers who serve on the board. And the model works, with the two-day October festival roaring back to life in 2018 and following that with successful outings in 2019 and 2021 as well; pandemic-disrupted 2020 saw a series of virtual performances instead.
But that success isn’t contained to the festival, or even to jazz lovers. As a two-day event held in locations scattered throughout the downtown (more on that in a bit), the event promotes the downtown corridor and boosts its businesses, making the festival’s success a true economic-development story, and Griggs a Difference Maker.
“I really care about the vitality and the economy of Northampton,” she said. “I’m hoping the Northampton Jazz Festival will continue to reaffirm and reinforce the unique entertainment value that Northampton offers.”
Taking It to the Streets
One key factor in the festival’s growing impact on downtown Northampton is a change in how it’s staged. From 2011 to 2015, it was presented in the Armory Street Parking Lot behind Thornes Marketplace. Along with the music stage was a beer tent, food vendors, a chef competition, and an art fair. It was a fun, multi-activity event, and attendees enjoyed it, Griggs said.
“What I felt was lacking was, if you were on Main Street, you had no idea anything was going on,” she explained. “It was tucked behind Thornes. It was efficient in that everything took place in one place, but there wasn’t a lot of space for an audience.”
Then, Cahillane and board member Paul Arslanian both came up with the same idea independently for the 2018 festival.
“In order to keep the cost down, which had gotten very high, and to be more all around town, they said, ‘let’s stage it in different places,’” Griggs said of the decision to schedule music acts inside downtown businesses, requiring attendees to move around to see them all.
The Art Blakey Centennial Celebration last October featured five original Jazz Messengers, including Robin Eubanks on trombone, Brian Lynch on trumpet, and Bobby Watson on saxophone. Photo by Julian Parker-Burns
“The idea was to get people to walk from place to place and stop in at a gallery or stop in at a restaurant or stop in at a café, and we would leave time in between shows so people could do that,” she explained. “Half the mission is supporting the economy of Northampton and bringing vibrancy back, which is what people said they wanted.”
Saturday’s slate of performances ends with the only ticketed show of the festival, a nationally known headliner at the Academy of Music. In recent years, that show has featured the Paquito D’Rivera Quintet in 2018, the Kurt Elling Quintet in 2019, and the Art Blakey Centennial Celebration in 2021, featuring five original members of Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.
The model has worked well, Griggs said, although the board has talked about streamlining it by bringing the venues closer together. One thing that won’t change, however, is the Friday Jazz Strut, which features local and regional bands, including student bands, and overlapping performance schedules.
“We stage the music a half-hour apart, and every band plays for two hours,” she noted. “That definitely gets people all over town, patronizing the restaurants and breweries and cafés. And that’s important.”
Speaking of students, the festival board also supports jazz education through a program called Jazz Artists in the Schools, in which Arslanian secures jazz artists from big cities across the Northeast to workshop with local high-school jazz bands.
“It’s an incredible opportunity for students to learn from musicians who make music, who have successfully made music their life — active, performing musicians,” Griggs said.
While “the board is the Jazz Festival,” she said, noting that it’s certainly a working board with year-round responsibilities, the festival itself also pulls in dozens of young volunteers each year, and she’s been moved by the sentiments they’ve expressed.
Cocomama performs at Pulaski Park in Northampton in October, one of many female-fronted acts who played last year’s Jazz Festival.
“One said, ‘I’ll do whatever you need me to do. I’ll be a runner, whatever you need for this to run smoothly; this is important,’” she recalled. A woman who had recently moved from Brooklyn said, “when I found out that Northampton has a jazz festival, I thought, ‘wow, this is a cool down, I want to live here, this is really cool.’
“That’s important for me to hear,” Griggs noted, adding that one vocalist who took part in the Jazz Strut clamored for more involvement and is now serving on the board.
“That’s critically important to me,” she went on. “I want this to last. I’ve been at this now since 2017, and I’ll be darned if, when I step down, it dies. That cannot happen. I would feel I failed if that happened. It’s critically important. So we need to keep bringing in the younger players and the younger musicians and the younger people who really care about keeping it alive. I think the Jazz Festival is now, and will be, an important feather in Northampton’s cap.”
Community Focused
Another volunteer and musician noted the 2021 festival’s increased slate of women performers, telling Griggs that was a definite plus for such an event in Northampton. She was impressed by young jazz enthusiasts pointing that fact out. “The goal is to continue to showcase women in jazz.”
Griggs has certainly shone over the years as a woman in marketing. As noted, she worked in New York City for 30 years, marketing for dot-com firms, mutual funds, and large corporations like American Express and Coca-Cola. She and her husband actually owned a firm for eight of those years, doing mostly financial-services marketing.
“That was lucrative, but totally intangible,” she said. “I got so tired of marketing credit cards and things like that.”
Then, while taking her teenage sons on college tours, she fell in love with higher education and the idea of “marketing people.” So she segued into higher-ed marketing for Queensboro Community College in the city.
“It totally changed my life. I felt like I got a crash course in nonprofit marketing and fundraising, because I reported to Development.”
When she returned to Northampton in 2011, she carried that experience with her into her new firm, RC Communications, working with a host of nonprofits in the Valley. She was also part of the Creative, a marketing enterprise she formed with Janice Beetle and Maureen Scanlon.
“But I was getting so involved in the chamber and the Jazz Festival, I felt like I needed to pull back and be semi-retired,” she told BusinessWest. While she still works with a few long-time clients, the rest of her time is split between the Jazz Festival, the chamber, her role chairing the investment committee at Edwards Church, and also Valley Jazz Voices, a group, formed in 2015, of 30 vocalists who sing exclusively jazz throughout region. “I just have so many initiatives I’m doing in the community, I just feel fortunate that I can spend more time doing them.”
She sees a symbiosis in these roles, just as she does between the Jazz Festival and the downtown environment it lifts up, and gets a lift from in return.
“The relationships I’ve made in the chamber are helpful to my business, and also helpful to the Jazz Festival, which is, in turn, helpful to the town. It’s a complete full circle.”
And a full life, one with the controlled, yet exciting, rhythm of a jazz performance — a life of true impact, note by note.
“I feel like I’m making a difference that people see most visibly — in the Jazz Fest — because of all the other things I do,” Griggs said. “It’s all of those things that I think make a difference together.”
NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton Jazz Festival will kick off on Friday, Oct. 1 with a Jazz Strut in downtown Northampton, and free performances are scheduled that first weekend of October in the event’s return after a pandemic-year hiatus.
The headliner for this year’s event is the Art Blakey Centennial Celebration, performing at the Academy of Music on Saturday, Oct. 2 at 7:30 p.m.
Ruth Griggs, president of the festival’s board of directors, said this year, the event has a focus on woman-led ensembles and will feature more female musicians than ever before.
“Although we had to cancel the fest in 2020, we worked hard to stay involved with bringing live jazz to the community in a safe way and to support musicians financially,” Griggs added, noting that the festival organization held a half-dozen outside concerts last fall and also recorded four local trios and streamed performances over Facebook and YouTube this spring. In partnership with Jim Olsen’s Signature Sounds and Northampton Open Media, it offered a jazz series in April, Jazz Appreciation Month.
“This fall, all the main Jazz Fest Day musicians who couldn’t play in 2020 are returning,” Griggs said. “This is rare, and we are honored.”
Festival attendees will be required to wear masks, following pandemic protocols as per the city of Northampton; for more information, visit northamptonjazzfest.org/health-and-safety-protocols.
In a collaboration between the Northampton Jazz Festival and the Downtown Northampton Assoc., patrons sporting a new Jazz Fest tote on Saturday, Jazz Fest Day, will receive a discount at participating downtown merchants; totes will be available for purchase at all festival performance venues on Oct. 2.
The Oct. 1 Jazz Strut will run from 5 to 10:30 p.m., starting at Pulaski Park. Local and regional trios and quartets will perform at the following venues: Wursthaus, 6:30 p.m.; the Dirty Truth, 7 p.m.; Spoleto, 7:30 p.m.; Progression Brewing Co., 8 p.m.; and the Deck Bar, 8:30 p.m. Each band plays for two hours, and the schedule is subject to change without notice.
The full lineup of festival performances on Oct. 2 is as follows: the Alex Hamburger Quartet, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Northampton Center for the Arts; Sullivan Fortner Solo Piano, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at CLICK Workspace; Northampton Expandable Brass Band, 1:30 to 1:55 p.m., marching from Bridge and Market Streets to Pulaski Park; Manduca Sexta, 2 to 3 p.m. at Pulaski Park; the ZT Amplifiers Artist Showcase, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Northampton Center for the Arts; Lioness, 3 to 5 p.m., First Churches of Northampton; Cocomama, 5 to 6:30 p.m. at Pulaski Park; and the Art Blakey Centennial Celebration, the only ticketed event, 7:30 p.m. at the Academy of Music, $15 to $50 at aomtheatre.com.
The festival’s headliner, the Art Blakey Centennial Celebration, is a multi-generational ensemble of musicians led by members of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. The five messengers, and the eras they performed in the group, are: alto saxophonist Bobby Watson (1977-81), tenor saxophonist Bill Pierce (1980-82), trumpeter Brian Lynch (1988-90), trombonist Robin Eubanks (1987-88), and bassist Essiet Okon Essiet (1989-90). Joining them are pianist Zaccai Curtis and drummer Jerome Gillespie, the latter with the responsibility — and talent — to ‘channel’ Blakey, according to the ensemble’s bio.
Griggs said the festival has seen unprecedented support from corporate sponsors this year. “Fifty percent of our 2021 corporate sponsors are new, and they are giving at a high level. Several longtime sponsors upped their giving. The generosity, support, and enthusiasm from the community has never been stronger and is much appreciated.”
Volunteers are still needed to staff the Friday and Saturday events. To take part, visit northamptonjazzfest.org/volunteer.
NORTHAMPTON — Due to the current regulations regarding community health and limitations on public gatherings brought on by COVID-19, the Northampton Jazz Festival has made the decision to postpone its 2020 festival scheduled for the first weekend in October.
The Northampton Jazz Festival is a celebration of jazz music held yearly in downtown Northampton, collaborating with local businesses and performers to provide the community with musical performances. From jazz strolls to intimate venues with Grammy Award-winning performers, this weekend has become a staple of the community. Next year’s event will be held on Oct. 1-2, 2021.
The organization plans to maintain a strong social-media presence to connect jazz lovers with live concerts they can safely watch from home. Furthermore, the board of directors is working under the guidance of both city and state public-health officials to collaborate with local musicians, city partners, and downtown businesses.
Through these means, festival leaders are working on a plan to provide downtown Northampton with quality jazz performances in a safe way. As Massachusetts transitions through its four-phase reopening, more details will be confirmed. While the festival cannot continue as intended this year, organizers hope to bring a celebration of jazz music to the community in a different and safe form.
President Ruth Griggs, who has been leading the festival for three years, noted that “we are truly saddened by the reality that this coronavirus has forced on us, but our most important goal is to provide a pleasurable, meaningful, and safe experience for our jazz fans, jazz musicians, and to our community partners. Unfortunately, we recognize that we just won’t be able to achieve that in this pandemic environment.”
