All that Jazz: Ruth Griggs on the Music of a Lifetime
By Melissa Karen Sances
Published In Northampton Living | September 2026
It may have taken a lifetime, but Ruth Griggs has fallen in love with jazz. The board president of the Northampton Jazz Festival — which returns to the city for its 15th year on Sept. 25 and 26 — was born into the genre. Her mom used to invite fellow singers to harmonize in their home. Her childhood was accompanied by jazz records played by her parents and siblings. She went on to marry jazz pianist Rich Fontana, who taught their sons the fundamentals while Griggs listened in.
“We used to have musicales in our house, parties where you invite over people who want to play and jam,” she said. “It was a very foundational part of our lives.”
The “our” here is key, because for a long time, Griggs was surrounded by jazz but not necessarily an active participant.
Griggs grew up off Prospect Street in Northampton, where her family moved on her third birthday, and she attended the Smith College Day School, now the Campus School of Smith College, and the Northampton School for Girls, now the Williston Northampton School. There, she was taken under the wings of creative students whose gifts inspired her to embrace her own.
“One of them wrote their own dramatic version of The Little Prince,” she said. “I was the Snake, and it was just magnificent.” Her friends were her muses, and she theirs. “I don’t consider myself creative, because I’m not a writer, I’m not a dyed-in-the-wool musician, I’m not a graphic designer, I don’t know how to draw for love or money … but being around creative people, that’s when I click. Because I feed off of their creativity, I respect it. I have been told by creative people that I understand them and I help bring their creativity to life.”
At Bennington College in Vermont, Griggs majored in drama and literature, and then was drawn to radio — recording and producing radio spots at what was then WTTT AM in Amherst. There, she discovered a penchant for marketing. Soon she was off to New York, where she got her master’s in business administration at New York University, and worked for American Express and other New York-based companies for 30 years.
Fontana was also in marketing. They married in 1984, and for most of the ’90s they had their own agency, BWC Group, in Manhattan. “He was the strategist and the copywriter and the creative force, and I was the account manager and the rainmaker,” said Griggs.
Then, a significant shift to being the director of marketing for Queensborough Community College opened her eyes to the nonprofit world, teaching her the value of fundraising and community engagement. Singing in local choral groups “scratched her performance itch,” while Fontana maintained regular jazz gigs.
After the two separated, Fontana passed away and Griggs returned to Northampton, knowing that she had a fondness for the area, but also realizing that it had changed — and so had she — during her time away. Rather than reinvesting in high school friendships, in 2011 she began frequenting local jazz clubs, where, she said, “I started mouthing off about how I wanted to sing jazz.”
Jazz teacher Sarah Clay overheard and obliged Griggs. “So I studied intensively with her for a year and a half,” she said, “and it was absolutely magical.”
After working high-pressure marketing jobs for decades, music had mostly been relegated to the background. No longer. “I developed my own relationship to jazz for the first time,” she explained. At the same time, she came to understand her relationship to her husband — and his relationship to jazz — in a new way. “I started singing songs that I realized my husband used to play for years that I never ‘heard.’”
It was a bittersweet awakening. “Suddenly I started to fall in love with jazz. I’ve often asked myself, ‘Is the reason why I’m leading the Jazz Fest because of my late husband? Did his passing give me permission to explore jazz myself? Why did I find these jazz people?’”
Again, her friends became her muses, and she theirs. After the Northampton Jazz Festival started in 2011 and petered out in 2015, people turned to Griggs to ask if she could help rebuild it.
The first executive director of the Downtown Northampton Association, Amy Cahillane, met with Griggs to explore the festival as an economic driver for the city. Meanwhile, the founder of the Northampton Jazz Workshop, Green Street Trio pianist Paul Arslanian, saw the festival as an opportunity for jazz musicians to do what they loved. But they agreed on this: the festival would thrive if held in several locations downtown.
In 2017 her friends declared her the president of the nonprofit and Griggs helmed her first fest in 2018.
“The Jazz Fest has been well-received because half of our mission is to add vitality to Northampton, to have audience members enjoy all of the merchants and galleries, the food establishments, breweries and bars,” said Griggs. The mayor proclaims it “Jazz Fest Weekend.”
Meanwhile, jazz has become a permanent fixture in her life. A couple years ago, said Griggs, she got herself “a little studio upright Baldwin piano. When I brought it into my house, I said, ‘Are you just going to look at it, Ruth?’ So I challenged myself to play.”
And what happened?
“I do feel that there’s some lived experience that’s coming out when I play my Baldwin,” she said. “Somehow.”
Jazz has been her muse, and now they play together.
But how does she know she’s in love?
“You have a certain touch and tempo that’s your own, and that’s your expression and people hear it,” she said. “It’s like you’re making the piano sing.”
The 15th annual Northampton Jazz Festival takes place on Sept. 25 and 26. Our calendar has more details, and you can learn more and support the nonprofit at northamptonjazzfest.org.
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