Playing Changes

Jazz for the New Century

De: Nate Chinen

Narrado por: Ron Butler

One of jazz’s leading critics gives us an invigorating, richly detailed portrait of the artists and events that have shaped the music of our time. Grounded in authority and brimming with style, Playing Changes is the first book to take the measure of this exhilarating moment: it is a compelling argument for the resiliency of the art form and a rejoinder to any claims about its calcification or demise.

“Playing changes,” in jazz parlance, has long referred to an improviser’s resourceful path through a chord progression. Playing Changes boldly expands on the idea, highlighting a host of significant changes—ideological, technological, theoretical, and practical—that jazz musicians have learned to navigate since the turn of the century. Nate Chinen, who has chronicled this evolution firsthand throughout his journalistic career, vividly sets the backdrop, charting the origins of jazz historicism and the rise of an institutional framework for the music. He traces the influence of commercialized jazz education and reflects on the implications of a globalized jazz ecology. He unpacks the synergies between jazz and postmillennial hip-hop and R&B, illuminating an emergent rhythm signature for the music. And he shows how a new generation of shape-shifting elders, including Wayne Shorter and Henry Threadgill, have moved the aesthetic center of the music.

Woven throughout the book is a vibrant cast of characters—from the saxophonists Steve Coleman and Kamasi Washington to the pianists Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer to the bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding—who have exerted an important influence on the scene. This is an adaptive new music for a complex new reality, and Playing Changes is the definitive guide.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Brilliant. Incisive. Jazz lives on and on and on, folks.”—Sonny Rollins

“Sharp in style and warm in feeling, Nate Chinen’s virtuoso survey dispenses with the familiar agendas and polemics that have too often boxed in writing on contemporary jazz. He follows the music where it goes and exults in its plurality of voices.”—Alex Ross, author of The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century

“Chinen’s passion for the art form and deep understanding and knowledge of jazz make for a fascinating read. His firm support of the music and belief that the changes taking place within it will continue to serve it well—solidifying jazz as a global mode of communication without bounds—are truly uplifting.”—Herbie Hancock

"Chinen has excellent taste in unruly new sounds and big, bent ears, and you’ll want to make a playlist."—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

"A terrific book about the shape of contemporary jazz, and right now is a terrific time to read it” —The Washington Post

"A perfectly timed, well-tuned chronicle of the past, present, and future of jazz...One of the essential music books of the young century, so far”—Slate

"Chinen's elegant, evocative writing is a mesmerizing staple of this essential book... Like the best nonfiction, Playing Changes will motivate jazz diehards and neophytes alike to discover what's out there and what's on the horizon."—PopMatters


"A really first-rate jazz critic has been necessary to lay out how vital it remains beneath all the encrusted misperceptions... It's always wonderful to read the results when artists and writers need each other."—Buffalo News

"A brilliant and wide-ranging new history of jazz... Chinen’s virtuoso jazz history will drive readers to listen to the music anew, or for the first time."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Old Head New Ears

I am 76, reintroducing myself to my Father’s music. This text broadened my palette and scope.

Jazz happens

Fantastic book surveying the recent history of jazz, and the state of the art today. What I most loved was the beautiful use of language to describe musical pieces, using adjectives through which I could imagine the music being played, even without having a technical understanding of concepts like harmony, chord progressions or the like. Those passages read like the best descriptions of the taste of wine, but using a broader spectrum of words that were accurate, clear and illustrative. I also appreciated how he covered some of the main discussions and arguments about what constitutes jazz, and the controversies regarding artists like Wynton Marsalis or Vijay Iyer. I had heard of these, but feel I know understand them better, as well as those on either side of the debate. The author did a good job of presenting the issues fairly, maintaining respect for the artists on either side of those debates. The structure of the book was superb, with the chapters well chosen, well organized, and adequately broad and detailed. The reading was excellent too, although I didn't always love the accents or acting he sometimes used when reading quotes of, say, a Latino or a woman. Nonetheless, for the most part, the reading was wonderful.

Well Worth Your Time

As good a survey of where jazz is at in the 21st Century. Any obsessive such as myself will have quibbles here and there, but for a general reader this book does its job admirably. It is mostly well read as well, I only caught a couple mangled names and there are a lot of names.

A jazz heads delight!

A great book about where jazz is going and the musicians who are brave enough to take it there.

Strong overview of jazz trends

I liked the authors ability to like an artist’s biography to their music. There is done effective story telling. The book should come with a pdf with recommended listening. To tell a listener at the end that they should buy the book to get the detailed list is self-serving at best.