Description

1959 saw Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the other members of Miles’s sextet come together to record the seminal jazz album of all time Kind of Blue.

3 Shades of Blue is a magnificent, blended biography on the meandering paths which led Miles, Coltrane and Evans to the mountaintop of 1959 and the aftermath. It’s a book about music, business, race, addiction and the cities that gave jazz its home; from New York and LA to Philadelphia, Chicago and Kansas City. Kaplan meditates on creativity and the great forebears of this golden age who would take the music down strange new paths.

Above all, this is a book about three very different men – their struggles, their choices, their tragedies, their greatness. The tapestry of their lives is, in Kaplan’s hands, an American Odyssey, with no direction home.

Publisher Review

3 Shades of Blue is an instant classic, one that both jazz fanatics and casual fans will love. James Kaplan sweeps us into the dazzling world of Swing Street after World War II, a scene as mythical and magical as Pablo Picasso’s Paris, Timothy Leary’s San Francisco or Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Concord. It is an intimate, enthralling portrait of the titans of 20th-century music – “friends and geniuses together” – and the revolution they created — DEBBY APPLEGATE, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of MADAM James Kaplan proves again that he is not only a penetrating commentator on American music but also a compelling storyteller. In his new book, Kaplan writes about a decisive moment in modern jazz and turns it into a genuine page-turner — TED GIOIA, author of THE HISTORY OF JAZZ James Kaplan once more combines his formidable skill as an electrifying storyteller of the history of American music with a true depth of understanding of the art form itself – this time through the eyes of three jazz legends. This book reads like music. Don’t miss it — SETH MacFARLANE, creator of FAMILY GUY Praise for Sinatra: The Chairman: Meticulously researched . . . Kaplan draws from previous biographies and the memoirs of Sinatra’s lovers and fellow travellers, but the pithy narrative is his own, as are his persuasive critiques of the music * * Guardian * * Monumental * * Financial Times * * Endlessly engaging * * Wall Street Journal * * Hugely readable, vastly entertaining * * New Yorker * * [Kaplan does a] nimble job of tracing the singer’s continued rise to international fame, and credibly explicates the alchemy behind the singer’s collaboration with Nelson Riddle and their amazing achievement during the Capitol Records year * * New York Times * *