The Gig (Newsletter)

6 days ago | thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen

But by now you’ve surely heard that Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected head of the Roman Catholic Church today. Pope Leo XIV, as he will be known, is the 267th pope, and the first to come from the United States of America. As word got out this afternoon, I exchanged texts with my wife, and we both noted how thrilled her father would have been. (He died in 2012, during the papacy of Benedict XVI.)But let’s be specific. Pope Leo XIV isn’t just the first American pope.

1 week ago | thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen

Today brought a sickening update about the National Endowment for the Arts, where many senior agency officials have submitted their resignations in the face of a slashed budget and a hostile political environment. As I noted in my coverage of the NEA Jazz Masters concert and ceremony one week ago, the precarity has been palpable for a while now.

2 weeks ago | thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen

Jazz Appreciation Month is drawing to a close, and we find ourselves suspended between celebration, contemplation, and lament. I’ll try to keep it all in balance. Andy Bey, who died on Saturday at 85, was the kind of singer who could make you cry. More strikingly, he could make you feel like crying was the answer to a call — the natural response to a welter of feeling in his suble turn of phrase. Today I made my best attempt, under hurried conditions, to honor him with this obituary.

2 weeks ago | thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen

goes back to 1941. We know it as a band staple for Duke Ellington, who recorded it a handful of times, even played it on film. The fact that “Things Ain’t What They Used to Be” is an Ellington song by proxy — composed by his son Mercer, who wasn’t a member of ASCAP, and thereby exempt from the restrictions of a strike — doesn’t diminish its aura. The song is canon. Maybe it’s now already playing in your head.

3 weeks ago | thegig.substack.com | Nate Chinen

Hello there! I hope you had a restful weekend. In my household, we just enjoyed spring break — no travel, just a lot of cooking, a few movie nights, fellowship with a visiting family member. So now it’s about catching up and charging ahead. Take Five is my periodic roundup of recommended listening, one track at a time (but usually within the context of a new or forthcoming album).