Griggs among 29 nationwide to receive Jazz Journalists Association recognition

NORTHAMPTON—Northampton Jazz Festival Board President Ruth Griggs has been named a Jazz Hero by the Jazz Journalists Association in its 25th annual recognition of “activists, advocates, altruists, aiders and abettors of jazz” across the United States.

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 Association, convened in 1987, is a nonprofit organization with 250 international members that provides creative and educational resources to individuals that forward the great 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 Association 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 Association Jazz Awards for jazz musicians. 

Griggs, of Northampton, 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 April 17, and an in-person presentation of Griggs’ Jazz Hero certificate will be held locally at a later date.

Past association award winners in the greater Connecticut River Valley region include Tom Reney, host of NEPM’s Jazz a la Mode, who received the Willis Conover-Marian McPartland Award for Career Excellence in Broadcasting in 2019, and Eugene Uman and Elsa Borrero, director and co-director of the Vermont Jazz Center, named Jazz Heroes in 2024. More about this year’s Jazz Heroes can be found at: news.jazzjournalists.org/29-jazz-heroes-across-north-america/

Said Griggs, “I am honored and humbled to stand alongside this impressive group of national Jazz Heroes—many of whom are my own heroes for all they do ‘to preserve and perpetuate this great American art form,’ to quote Max Roach.”

The Northampton Jazz Festival is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation founded in 2011 and is funded by local businesses, organizations, foundations and individuals which makes it possible to provide free live music to the general public. The Festival is September 26 and 27, with several other jazz events planned in May, June and September. For more information about the Northampton Jazz Festival, visit northamptonjazzfest.org or email info@northamptonjazzfest.org.

The post Northampton Jazz Festival Board President Ruth Griggs Named Jazz Hero appeared first on Beetle Press.

Email is convenient, and it’s easy, and it makes pretty much everyone’s workflow easier, but it has its drawbacks as well, I think we’d all agree.

For one thing, it never stops. Email just keeps coming and coming. Minutes after you’ve spent a few hours going through your inbox, you walk away to have lunch and come back a half hour later to 20 new pieces of correspondence.

Sigh.

In addition to being relentless, email is also known to cause misinterpretations. Without facial expressions—like your big old smile to indicate a joke (or the attempt at one)—recipients can think a sender is upset with them when they are simply being silly with a quick thought or a snappy retort.

Because we all have to live with email, and we all do love it as much as we fear it, I wanted to step into the role of Emily Post for a moment on the topic. I happen to think she would agree with me on all the below points:

• Read your work before you hit “Send.” Make sure your emails make sense. Even though I’m an editor, I also am a former journalist, and I love email because it’s quick. Write it, whoosh, send it, done. That was my philosophy until I saw, more than once, how many typos I had sent out to clients in emails I had hastily composed. Doesn’t look good, coming from an editor. I had to learn the hard way to read emails over carefully and edit myself before I send, the way you would edit a letter you were printing to mail.
• Know when it’s time to pick up the phone. I learned from my colleagues, Ruth Griggs and Maureen Scanlon in The Creative, that sometimes, email is not the right means of communication. When concepts are complicated, for instance, or when you are discussing tender topics, such as contract negotiations, it’s always best to pick up the phone. Don’t take the risk that you might not communicate clearly via email. Don’t leave yourself open to misinterpretation when it matters most.
• Be responsive. A big pet peeve of mine is email corresponders who do not respond to email. I think of email as a conversation, so when you take the time to compose your thoughts—and sometimes that takes a good deal of time—and then you get no reply, it makes me cranky. If you’re too busy to craft a thoughtful reply in the moment, take a few minutes to say, “Got this and will offer a thoughtful response by Thursday,” for instance. Or, if all that’s required is a “Thanks, got it,” say that. Don’t just “walk away” from the conversation. Engage until there is proper closure. If you are someone who is often out of the office on business, consider an auto response that says, “I am out of the office frequently this week and will reply to your email as soon as I am able.” One of my clients, the young and savvy Mike O’Brien of League Legends, Inc., has this auto reply set up on his League Legends email: “It is our goal to reply within 24 hours but feel free to call or text Michael O’Brien at (413) 210-8823 or try the email address mobrien218@aol.com if you don’t hear back soon.” Nice.
• Don’t drag it on. At the same time, there’s no need for emails to go on and on and on. Here I mean follow-up emails with one quick thought in each: “Thank you.” “No, thank you.” “You’re welcome.” “Sure.” “Have a nice day.” Etc. etc.

If you have email etiquette thoughts to share with me, please do. I’m at janice@beetlepress.com, and I can assure you I will respond promptly!

The post The Etiquette Around Email appeared first on Beetle Press.

The collaboration, which launched in April 2013, is made up of Janice Beetle, principal of Beetle Press; Ruth Griggs, principal of RC Communications; and Maureen Scanlon, principal of Murre Creative. Together, they provide strategic marketing, messaging and design services; the trio is unique in that it provides flexible services to clients, combining forces to match clients’ needs and offering a full complement of agency services where necessary.

The Creative provides its clients with the opportunity for comprehensive marketing and communications services, including assistance with advertising campaigns, branding, public relations, print collateral, strategic marketing planning and fundraising campaigns.

For more information, call (413)-727-3354 or visit thecreativemarketing.net.

The post The Creative Opens Office in Thornes Marketplace appeared first on Beetle Press.