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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What is your ideal summer-jazz heat signature? Cool and refreshing, like a standard sung by Stacey Kent? Or bright and blazing, like an uptempo blues by the Marel Hidalgo Organ Trio? -
David F. Gibson, whose precise and hard-driving beat powered legacy editions of the Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Cab Calloway orchestras, and other bands big and small, died on July 30. He was 72. -
On his fine new Blue Note album, Words Fall Short, saxophonist Joshua Redman introduces a band full of up-and-comers, including Philly’s own Nazir Ebo. This young cohort reminded us of a conversation The Late Set had with Redman in the fall of 2023. We're sharing it again with you now. -
Finesse and fire — those are the ingredients you’ll find among this week’s offerings in Moment’s Notice, which feature two standout singers, a lauded saxophonist, and a local hot-jazz band. -
A new documentary about Sun Ra, the otherworldly composer-bandleader, will screen at the BlackStar Film Festival on Aug. 2. As director Christine Turner tells WRTI, it's a portrait that relies on a balancing act. -
Whether you feel like summer is whizzing by or dragging on, we’re here with objectively good news: excellent live music just keeps coming. This week brings a visiting legend, a hot band from across the pond, and a local institution celebrating a festive occasion. -
Painter of the Invisible is Jaleel Shaw's first full-band album in more than a dozen years. But it's not as if Shaw, an alto and soprano saxophonist from Philadelphia, has been slacking; as he explains in this revealing episode of The Late Set, the pause had more to do with high standards and pure convictions.
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In Moment's Notice this week: free shows by Keyon Harrold and Brian Betz, an ambient set from Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer and more. -
Impulse! Records has announced the fall release of two landmarks by saxophonist John Coltrane, in special vinyl editions: 'A Love Supreme: Mono Edition' and 'The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings.' Here's what that means. -
Jaleel Shaw's elegy "Tamir" is vividly rendered in this exclusive live performance at Solar Myth, available exclusively on The Late Set.
