NATE CHINEN has been writing about music for more than twenty-five 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 content at WRTI, a Classical and Jazz station in Philadelphia, he contributes a range of coverage to NPR Music.
(photo: Michael Lionstar)
A thirteen-time winner of the Helen Dance–Robert Palmer Award for Excellence in Writing, presented by the Jazz Journalists Association, Chinen is also coauthor of Myself Among Others: A Life in Music, the 2003 autobiography of festival impresario and producer George Wein.
His work 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).
Chinen was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. He 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, The Gig.
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 revived The Gig as a column for JazzTimes, where it ran in 125 consecutive installments.
From 2017 to 2022, Chinen served as director of editorial content at WBGO — managing the station’s full spectrum of editorial coverage, contributing to NPR Music, and joining radio veteran Greg Bryant 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. Chinen also served as consulting producer with Jazz Night in America, a multimedia program hosted by Christian McBride.
At WRTI, Chinen oversees coverage of both jazz and classical music, across digital platforms. He continues to contribute to NPR Music, where he served as a judge in the 2022 Tiny Desk Contest.
He lives in Wynnewood, PA with his wife and two daughters.