Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century (Nate Chinen)

Nate Chinen's book carries a clear mission within its pages: correct the mainstream misunderstanding that jazz is culturally and artistically inert in the present century to show readers that the genre and its many contemporary players are, in fact, as prolific and boldly innovative as ever. Chinen writes each chapter of Playing Changes to focus on a musician who has taken part in shaping the modern evolution of jazz, discussing that person's art and views while also placing them as a hub to branch out into connections formed across contemporaries, genres, places and histories. Even if you haven't yet paid much attention to the jazz of the 21st century, you'll probably recognize some of the names he centers in his chapters (e.g., Kamasi Washington, Esperanza Spalding, Wayne Shorter, Roy Hargrove, Vijay Iyer, Brad Mehldau). As a read, Playing Changes is enormously interesting, and Chinen includes his personal list of The 129 Essential Albums of the Twenty-First Century (So Far) to make this book a handy reference text for the curious listener.