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Nate Chinen: Playing changes (2018) 5 stars

One of jazzs leading critics gives us an invigorating, richly detailed portrait of the artists …

Contemporary Jazz is not what you think

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I am as guilty as anyone for assuming that Jazz hit a high water mark in the 60s. I collect vinyl from that period almost exclusively. I knew a bit about the Bad Plus, Nubya Garcia, and Jason Moran, and that was about it.

But this book introduced me to a bunch of contemporary music I had no idea about: Kamasi Washington, Vijay Iyer, Steven Coleman, Mary Halvorson, and more.

It's a typical jazz book in that it sometimes feels like a catalog of names, albums, and performances. But Chinen does a great job of synthesizing things and explaining the significance of these artists and albums.