3 Shades of Blue

Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

By: James Kaplan

Narrated by: Dion Graham

The National Bestseller • One of The Minneapolis Star Tribune's Best Books of the Year

“A superb book...[Kaplan is] a master biographer, a dogged researcher and shaper of narrative, and this is his most ambitious book to date.” —Los Angeles Times

From the author of the definitive biography of Frank Sinatra, the story of three towering artists—Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans—and how they came together to create the most iconic jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue

In 1959, America’s great indigenous art form, jazz, reached the height of its power and popularity. James Kaplan’s magnificent 3 Shades of Blue captures how that golden era came to be, and its pinnacle with the recording of Kind of Blue. It’s a book about music, and business, and race, and heroin, and the cities that gave jazz its home, and the Black geniuses behind its rise. It’s an astonishing meditation on creativity and the strange environments where it can flourish most. It’s a book about the great forebears and founders of a lost era, and the disrupters who would take the music down truly new paths. And it’s about why the world of jazz most people know is a museum to this never-replicated period.

But above all, 3 Shades of Blue is a book about three very different men—the greatness and varied fortunes of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans. The tapestry of their lives is, in Kaplan’s hands, a national odyssey with no direction home. It is also a masterpiece, a book about jazz that is as big as America.

important American History

informative, enlightening and entertaining. An unfiltered view of American musical history. A must read/ listen for those interested in American music.

Short lifespan of jazz artists

Wonderful book about 3 great jazz musicians. Kind of Blue has been by favorite jazz album since I purchased the LP during December 1960.

One of the most important periods of Jazz history.

Great premise and execution about an important period of American music history. I really enjoyed this book.

Three immortals who lived very mortal lives.

A great journey through the lives of three musical geniuses. There is a lot of legendary that has accrued to classic jazz and its most famous players, and this book deftly navigates through the mythology to deliver well-rounded portraits of its subjects. The various jazz players who knew these men through the years are well represented through quotes and interviews, and they help build a full picture of three lives restlessly spent questing for new sounds and developing their artistry, but also succumbing to the rigors of substance abuse that shortened those lives. Their work is immortal, even if they were not. The audiobook is expertly and perfectly performed by Dion Graham.

The history of 3 jazz greats

I loved learning the back story of their lifestyle , character and of their natural talent .