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A review by janthonytucson
Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century by Nate Chinen
5.0
I read roughly 40 books a year, I have a degree in jazz from University of Miami, I make my living as a professional session and touring musician, this is one of the best books I have read in the last 3 years. Not even close, I loved this book!
I can't tell you how many times I smiled while reading this book. I was nodding my head like 'yeah man, so great to see someone vocalize these truths in such an elegant and straight forward way.’
This book is about as inside baseball as you can get with modern jazz. If you don’t have a solid foundational understanding of jazz, I am not talking about what hip re-harm you can do on a ii-V-I, I am talking about knowing all the players, and what they do, and how they do, and how certain hangs are in the jazz world, if you don’t have at least a modicum of insight into how all of that stuff goes down, you will not like this book.
If you are of the school of mind that bop is where it is at, and anything else is nonsense, you will HATE this book. And that's fine, there are plenty of books out there for you.
if you are just a casual listener of jazz, and like jazz, and think, ohh this will be a nice book to read, you will probably not get this book. No offensive, I was thinking about an analogy and I remember after the 2008 financial crisis I wanted to learn more about global finance, and so I read a bunch of books recommend by these economic professors, and while I was reading them about 80% of it went over my head because I did not have the requisite foundational knowledge to understand the theories, and processes being explained.
And that is fine, I never attempted to get a PHD in economics, and if you are a casual listener to jazz, you are not gonna get most of this book, and again, there are mountains of books out there for you.
This book should be a must read for any serious jazz musician out there though. This book is worth the time (and money).
I can't tell you how many times I smiled while reading this book. I was nodding my head like 'yeah man, so great to see someone vocalize these truths in such an elegant and straight forward way.’
This book is about as inside baseball as you can get with modern jazz. If you don’t have a solid foundational understanding of jazz, I am not talking about what hip re-harm you can do on a ii-V-I, I am talking about knowing all the players, and what they do, and how they do, and how certain hangs are in the jazz world, if you don’t have at least a modicum of insight into how all of that stuff goes down, you will not like this book.
If you are of the school of mind that bop is where it is at, and anything else is nonsense, you will HATE this book. And that's fine, there are plenty of books out there for you.
if you are just a casual listener of jazz, and like jazz, and think, ohh this will be a nice book to read, you will probably not get this book. No offensive, I was thinking about an analogy and I remember after the 2008 financial crisis I wanted to learn more about global finance, and so I read a bunch of books recommend by these economic professors, and while I was reading them about 80% of it went over my head because I did not have the requisite foundational knowledge to understand the theories, and processes being explained.
And that is fine, I never attempted to get a PHD in economics, and if you are a casual listener to jazz, you are not gonna get most of this book, and again, there are mountains of books out there for you.
This book should be a must read for any serious jazz musician out there though. This book is worth the time (and money).