In a conversation about his new book, Playing Changes: Jazz for the New Century, one of jazz's leading critics Nate Chinen will discuss the evolution of jazz, and how it exists in contemporary times in both the United States and abroad, along with fellow panelists and musicians Terence Blanchard, Camila Meza, and Keyon Harrold.* Copies of the book will be available for sale via Greenlight Bookstore.
*Terence Blanchard will be performing during BRIC JazzFest Marathon Night 3 on Saturday, October 20, and Camila Meza and Keyon Harrold will be performing as part of BRIC JazzFest Marathon Night 2, on Friday, October 19.
Now in its fourth year, BRIC JazzFest includes film, dance, panel discussions, workshops, and a three-stage, three-night live music marathon that celebrates some of the most exciting global legends in jazz, and groundbreaking new jazz artists from Brooklyn and beyond.
BIOS:
Nate Chinen, the ten-time winner of the Helen Dance-Robert Palmer Award for Excellence in Writing, has worked over twenty years writing about jazz. He spent most of his time working as a critic for the New York Times and holding a long-running column for Jazz Times. Currently, he is the Director of Editorial Content for WBGO, where he works with Jazz Night in America, The Checkout, and with a range of jazz programming on NPR.
Terence Blanchard early on made a name for himself as a top-tier jazz trumpeter, and he has gone on to enjoy a multifaceted career in the jazz world and beyond. He’s not only a four-time GRAMMY Award winner, but he’s also been recognized by US Artists, the MAPFund, and the NEA for his work in the jazz idiom and beyond. As a film composer, Blanchard has more than 50 scores to his credit, including receiving a Golden Globe nomination for Spike Lee's 25th Hour, and he’s also added to those achievements recent successes composing for Broadway, including for The Motherf**ker With a Hat, starring Chris Rock and Bobby Canavale, and the revival of Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play A Streetcar Named Desire. After serving as the artistic director of the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz for a decade since 2000, Blanchard was also named Artist in Residence at the Berklee College of Music in Boston in 2015.
Camila Meza, equally prized as a vocalist, guitarist and composer, has brought a sound full of warmth, intricacy and rhythmic clarity to the New York jazz scene ever since her arrival from Santiago, Chile in 2009. Inspired by jazz, South American music, and American popular songs of many eras and genres, she has uplifted audiences worldwide with her rare combination of talents: assured and beautiful singing, highly advanced guitar, and vividly colorful and melodic songwriting.
Keyon Harrold was born and raised in Ferguson, MO, the St. Louis suburb that tore into America’s national consciousness in 2014 with the police shooting of Michael Brown and the bitter protests and riots that followed. Growing up as one of 16 children in a family that prioritized music and community across generations, Harrold released his solo debut, Introducing Keyon Harrold, in 2009 and then won wide acclaim for his trumpet performances in Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead. His recent album The Mugician (2017) is a portmanteau of “musician” and “magician, a nod to a nickname Cheadle bestowed upon the young virtuoso, and it’s an apt descriptor for a record that pushes beyond the traditional boundaries of jazz trumpet.