Nate Chinen
Editorial DirectorNate Chinen has been writing about music for more than 25 years. He spent a dozen of them working as a critic for The New York Times, and helmed a long-running column for JazzTimes. As Editorial Director at WRTI, he oversees a range of classical and jazz coverage, and contributes regularly to NPR.
A 13-time winner of the Helen Dance–Robert Palmer Award for Excellence in Writing, presented by the Jazz Journalists Association, Nate is the author of Playing Changes: Jazz For the New Century, recognized as one of the best books of 2018 by NPR, GQ, Billboard and JazzTimes. He is also coauthor of Myself Among Others: A Life in Music, the award-winning 2003 autobiography of festival impresario and producer George Wein.
Nate maintains a newsletter, The Gig, at Substack. His work also appears in Best Music Writing 2011, Pop When the World Falls Apart: Music in the Shadow of Doubt (Duke University Press, 2012), and Miles Davis: The Complete Illustrated History (Voyageur Press, 2012).
Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, Nate started his career as a music critic in 1996, at the Philadelphia City Paper. There he covered one of the great jazz cities at ground level, writing a steady stream of reviews and features, along with a biweekly column.
He moved to New York City in 1998, and began writing for a range of publications, including DownBeat, Blender, and Vibe. For several years he was the jazz critic for Weekend America, a syndicated radio program. He covered jazz for the Village Voice from 2003 through 2005, when he became a regular contributor to The New York Times. Around the same time, he started his monthly JazzTimes column, The Gig, which ran in 125 consecutive installments.
From 2017 until August 2022, Nate was Director of Editorial Content at Newark Public Radio — managing the full spectrum of editorial coverage at wbgo.org, and serving as a consulting producer for Jazz Night in America, a multimedia program hosted by Christian McBride. He also joined radio veteran Greg Bryant there as co-creator and co-host of Jazz United, which won the JJA’s award for Podcast of the Year in each of its two seasons.
Nate lives in Wynnewood, PA with his wife and two daughters.
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The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis are swinging into Philly — at the close of a week that brings Dan Weiss, Brew Trio and others to Solar Myth. -
Heading into summer, the beat of jazz in the Philadelphia area is strong. This week's offerings include Stanley Clarke's N*4EVER, Nelson Rangell, and an Alex Claffy stand featuring Kurt Rosenwinkel and Johnathan Blake. -
Philly music fans may know Julian Booker for his decade-plus on the air at WXPN. He joins WRTI as Associate Program Director for Jazz, and as a Saturday-evening host: he'll take over The Get Down starting June 7. -
In Moment's Notice this week, there's a great mix of landmark performances and down-to-earth jazz gigs. From the percussive project Onilu and Marshall Allen's Ghost Horizons to the Luke Carlos O'Reilly Quartet and Webb Thomas & His Superband, you can't miss out. -
"In honor of Stevie Wonder's 75th, I'm overjoyed to pay homage to his vast tapestry of music," says Courtney Blue. From 9 p.m. to midnight, she'll play nothing but jazz versions of his songs on Late Evening Jazz. -
"Running and listening can illuminate each other,” argues critic Ben Ratliff in a new book, Run the Song: Writing About Running About Listening. He recently sat down to talk about the book, its back story and his listening practice with friend and colleague Nate Chinen at Solar Myth. -
Heads up: the Exit Zero Jazz Festival is rolling into Cape May, NJ, bringing some of today's greatest jazz talent to the stage. If you're looking for something closer to Philly, then don't fret - V. Shayne Frederick, Nasir Dickerson, Ken Fowser and more are performing in the city this week. -
He is no longer actively performing, but as Keith Jarrett ushers in his ninth decade, he's still releasing new recordings — in this case, a track from 'New Vienna,' the latest document from his final European tour. Learn more and listen here. -
From his seat at the piano, Andy Bey sang with a hushed interiority that could make a listener feel as if he were exchanging confidences. He died on April 26, at 85. -
"We're celebrating artists who are going to continue to make an imprint on the field," Ashley Ferro-Murray, program director for the arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, tells WRTI. Two such artists are harpist Brandee Younger and drummer Kassa Overall, who are among the 2025 Doris Duke Artists.
