When Gioia worked amidst Silicon Valley's venture capital community on Sand Hill Road, he was known as the "guy with the piano in his office.

"[8] Gioia is also owner of one of the largest collections of research materials on jazz and ethnic music in the Western United States.

[11][12] In his study of love songs, Gioia contends that innovations in the history of this music came from Africa and the Middle East.

[13] In 2006, Gioia was the first to expose, in an article in the Los Angeles Times, the FBI files on folk and roots music icon Alan Lomax.

His concept of "post-cool" described in his book The Birth (and Death) of the Cool, was selected as one of the Big Ideas of 2012 by Adbusters magazine.