Iolani grad authors book with jazz impresario Wein
By Zenaida Serrano Espanol
Advertiser Staff Writer
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Teddy Tanaka asked his son what he wanted to do next.
"I said, 'You know, I'd really like to write a book,' " Chinen recalled telling his father. "'I'd really like to write a kind of jazz history of some sort, you know, or like, write a biography of somebody. I don't know, maybe someday that will happen.'"
The idea wasn't far-fetched, as the 1994 Iolani graduate was an English major who, as a college student, did freelance jazz writing for the Philadelphia City Paper.
Chinen, a drummer, is a jazz musician himself.
Less than a year later, a series of chance meetings and coincidences lead Chinen to help write what would become "Myself Among Others: A Life in Music," the memoirs of jazz impresario and pianist George Wein.
The book, released this year, follows the intriguing life of the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, Newport Folk Festival, and New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
"He invented the concept of outdoor popular concert presentation, and in the process really revitalized jazz as an art form," Chinen said.
The book was a four-year project for Chinen, now 27 and living in Manhattan as an editor of AOL City Guides for New York and Philadelphia.
"I think he did a tremendous job," said Wein, via telephone from his Manhattan home. " ... He really did catch my voice."
The book has earned the respect of knowledgeable figures in the music world, not only making a name for Chinen, but spreading the word about Wein's accomplishments.
Reached via e-mail in New Jersey, Terence Ripmaster, author and former president of the New Jersey Jazz Society, called the book "an interesting autobiography about one of the most important figures in the jazz world."
"It is a valuable source for future jazz historians," Ripmaster said.
A review from the New York Times dubbed the read "vastly entertaining."
"In his exhaustive chronicle of a half-century behind the scenes, put together with the help of Nate Chinen, a freelance writer, Mr. Wein is never far from center stage, and his account of his rise from journeyman Boston pianist to enterprising nightclub owner to global impresario is compelling," wrote New York Times writer Peter Keepnews. "But he knows that what gives the story its real juice is all those illustrious 'others' with whom he has worked."
Those "illustrious others" include jazz legends Sarah Vaughan, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong.
Chinen's path to collaboration with Wein began when Chinen moved to New York City several months after graduating from Penn.
"I didn't really have any contacts in the city," Chinen said. "I think I moved with $80 in my pocket."
Chinen found a cheap apartment and made ends meet by freelancing for the Philadelphia City Paper, Billboard online and Down Beat, a jazz magazine. "I sent out dozens and dozens of letters and resumés to record labels and magazines and wherever else I could think of ... (for) any kind of position," Chinen said.
Chinen met with Hawai'i-born Kimo Gerald, the house manager at Carnegie Hall, who suggested Chinen send his resumé to Festival Productions Inc., Wein's company.
"My secretary said it was an interesting resumé, but I didn't have a job at that moment for anybody," Wein said. "But the same day I had spoken to an English teacher at Trinity School in New York who had said once he wanted to write my book with me. He said he couldn't do it, but he had met a young fellow that just graduated from Penn who was somebody I should meet," Wein said.
The "young fellow" was Chinen, and the English teacher was Bill Zavatsky, a man Chinen had met at a jazz club and with whom Chinen became friends.
"It was serendipity," Wein said about ultimately choosing Chinen to help with the book.
What followed was months of what Chinen called an "obsession." "It became a very intensive process," he said. "I spent a lot of hours interviewing him, transcribing his notes and really getting to know not only his life and the circumstances around his career, but also who he is as a person, his perspective and even his way of speaking."
Chinen and Wein spent countless hours together and developed a close friendship. Chinen even lived with Wein and his wife, Joyce, for a month in their summer home in the south of France.
"I drank his wine and had fabulous meals, but also essentially worked from dawn until midnight every day, just immersed in his life, which was exhausting but also really rewarding," Chinen said.
Says Wein: "I'm very happy about one thing: that I insisted that Nate's name be on the cover of the book because it wasn't a ghostwriting situation. I've seen a young man who came to New York that nobody knew, (who is) now is relatively well known in the field in which he writes, and we've created a career. And that makes me feel very good. He earned it."
Reach Zenaida Serrano Espanol at 535-8174 or zespanol@honoluluadvertiser.com.
