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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High summer and the Fourth of July weekend have conspired to make this a quieter stretch on the calendar — but there are a few gigs to know about, including a free outdoor concert by a jazz-guitar great. -
Joni’s Jazz, a celebration of Joni Mitchell's deep affinity with jazz, will be released as a boxed set and on digital services on Sep. 5. A previously unreleased demo version of "Be Cool" from 1980 has been released as a single today. -
We’ve reached the midpoint of 2025, and listened our way through well over a hundred albums. In this episode, we’re sharing half a dozen of our favorites. -
We may be experiencing a heat wave, but the music this week is keeping it cool. Catch Josh Lawrence at the Black Squirrel, Ari Hoenig at Chris', Matmos at Solar Myth and more. -
This Juneteenth, WRTI is proud to present a video premiere of "Driva'man," from the new Terri Lyne Carrington and Christie Dashiell album 'We Insist! 2025.' -
Kevin Day has composed well-received works for orchestra and jazz combo, but nothing has stretched his horizons quite like Lalovavi: An Afrofuturist Opera in Three Acts — his debut opera, which will premiere at the Cincinnati Opera in the summer of 2026. During a recent visit to WRTI, Day talked about this epic work, and played some of its themes at the piano. -
Carmen Lundy, esperanza spalding and Sullivan Fortner are among the headliners at the 38th Clifford Brown Jazz Fest. Also this week, in Philly: Nasir Dickerson, Kaisa's Machine and more. -
Pianist-composer Amaro Freitas creates music with a vivid sense of place. His native Brazil pulses through his most recent album, Y'Y, which mixes jazz with Afro-Brazilian and indigenous music, and the sounds of the Amazon. Freitas discusses this and more with Josh Jackson, in a deeply searching conversation recorded backstage at New York's Winter Jazzfest earlier this year.
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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.
