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From one of jazz's leading critics comes an invigorating, richly detailed portrait of the artists and events that have shaped the music of our time. Grounded in authority and brimming with style, here is the first book to take the measure of this exhilarating moment: a compelling argument for the resiliency of the art form and a rejoinder to any claims about its calcification or demise. "Playing changes," in jazz parlance, has long referred to an improviser's resourceful path through a chord progression. Nate Chinen's Playing Changes boldly expands on the idea, highlighting a host of real changes - ideological, technological, theoretical, and practical - that jazz musicians have learned to navigate since the turn of the century. Chinen, who has chronicled this evolution firsthand throughout his journalistic career, vividly sets the backdrop, charting the origins of jazz historicism and the rise of an institutional framework for the music.