
3 Shades of Blue
Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool
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Narrated by:
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Dion Graham
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By:
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James Kaplan
About this listen
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.
©2024 James Kaplan (P)2024 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“[Kaplan is] a master biographer, a dogged researcher and shaper of narrative, and this is his most ambitious book to date . . . he shows his instinct for juggling and connecting multiple stories and characters without taking his eye off the big picture . . . a compulsively readable work of fine synthesis and perspective . . . a superb book.”—Los Angeles Times
“James Kaplan’s new effort, 3 Shades of Blue, raises the bar . . . At a time when jazz is reemergent and viral, seeping into virtually every musical genre (and vice versa), we are fortunate that the author has conjured this hothouse flower of a book—as rarified, intricate, and haunting as an orchid.”—David Friend, Vanity Fair
“‘This is the story of the three geniuses who joined forces to create one of the great classics in Western music,’ Mr. Kaplan writes . . . Kaplan does a wonderful job synthesizing sources to produce a compelling narrative history. His own interviews add a lot as well. His technical descriptions of the music are accessible and useful.”—Wall Street Journal
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- A Guide to the Repertoire
- By: Ted Gioia
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 21 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Written by award-winning jazz historian Ted Gioia, this comprehensive guide offers an illuminating look at more than 250 seminal jazz compositions. In this comprehensive and unique survey, here are the songs that sit at the heart of the jazz repertoire, ranging from "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Autumn in New York" to "God Bless the Child," "How High the Moon," and "I Can't Give You Anything But Love." Gioia includes Broadway show tunes written by such greats as George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, and classics by such famed jazz musicians as Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and John Coltrane.
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Great info, but not ideal in audio format
- By Patrick on 08-30-14
By: Ted Gioia
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Playing Changes
- Jazz for the New Century
- By: Nate Chinen
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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“Playing changes”, in jazz parlance, has long referred to an improviser’s resourceful path through a chord progression. Playing Changes boldly expands on the idea, highlighting a host of significant changes - ideological, technological, theoretical, and practical - that jazz musicians have learned to navigate since the turn of the century. Nate 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.
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Jazz happens
- By álvaro castro on 02-11-19
By: Nate Chinen
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Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion
- By: Bill Messenger, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Bill Messenger
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Original Recording
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Jazz is a uniquely American art form, one of America's great contributions to not only musical culture, but world culture, with each generation of musicians applying new levels of creativity that take the music in unexpected directions that defy definition, category, and stagnation. Now you can learn the basics and history of this intoxicating genre in an eight-lecture series that is as free-flowing and original as the art form itself.
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A Disappointingly Distorted, Myopic View Of Jazz
- By Parallax View on 08-18-13
By: Bill Messenger, and others
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How to Listen to Jazz
- By: Ted Gioia
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In How to Listen to Jazz, award-winning music scholar Ted Gioia presents a lively introduction to one of America's premier art forms. He tells us what to listen for in a performance and includes a guide to today's leading jazz musicians. From Louis Armstrong's innovative sounds to the jazz-rock fusion of Miles Davis, Gioia covers the music's history and reveals the building blocks of improvisation. A true love letter to jazz by a foremost expert.
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Kind of useless as an audiobook.
- By Mitch Foster on 02-28-20
By: Ted Gioia
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Herbie Hancock: Possibilities
- By: Herbie Hancock, Lisa Dickey
- Narrated by: Herbie Hancock
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Hancock discusses his musical influences, colorful behind-the-scenes stories, his long and happy marriage, and how Buddhism inspires him creatively and personally. Honest, enlightening, and as electrifyingly vital as the man who wrote it, Herbie Hancock promises to be an invaluable contribution to jazz literature and a must-read for fans and music lovers.
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High Marks All Round
- By Joyce on 06-21-15
By: Herbie Hancock, and others
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Frank
- The Voice
- By: James Kaplan
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 22 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Bestselling author James Kaplan redefines Frank Sinatra in a triumphant new biography that includes many rarely seen photographs. Frank Sinatra was the best-known entertainer of the twentieth century—infinitely charismatic, lionized and notorious in equal measure.
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Both fascinating and tedious
- By Brad on 12-12-10
By: James Kaplan
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Delta Blues
- The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music
- By: Ted Gioia
- Narrated by: Chris Abernathy
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The blues grew out of the plantations and prisons, the swampy marshes and fertile cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta. With original research and keen insights, Ted Gioia - the author of a landmark study of West Coast jazz and the critically acclaimed The History of Jazz - brings to life the stirring music of the Delta, evoking the legendary figures who shaped its sound and ethos: Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, and others.
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A well-researched history of the blues
- By Joselo on 08-19-21
By: Ted Gioia
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Miles to Go
- By: Chris Murphy
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Miles to Go is a frank and intimate exploration of Miles Davis' eccentric working life, drug habits, paranoia, depression, and subsequent recovery. Murphy explores Davis' troubled relationship with his children and the controversial role Cicely Tyson played in his life. The book also delves into the dynamics that made Davis' band work so well together, placing Davis' work in a historic, literary, and musical framework.
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Miles to Go (Unabridged)
- By Matthew on 09-07-06
By: Chris Murphy
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Saxophone Colossus
- The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins
- By: Aidan Levy
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 31 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Sonny Rollins has long been considered an enigma. Known as the "Saxophone Colossus," he is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz improvisers of all time. His seven-decade career has been well documented, but the backstage life of the man once called "the only jazz recluse" has gone largely untold—until now. Based on more than 200 interviews with Rollins himself, family members, friends, and collaborators, as well as Rollins' personal archive, Saxophone Colossus is the comprehensive portrait of this legendary saxophonist and composer, civil rights activist and environmentalist.
By: Aidan Levy
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Music
- A Subversive History
- By: Ted Gioia
- Narrated by: Jamie Renell
- Length: 17 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate the mainstream assimilators who borrowed innovations, diluted their impact, and disguised their sources. In Music: A Subversive History, Ted Gioia reclaims the story of music for the riffraff, insurgents, and provocateurs. Gioia tells a 4,000-year history of music as a global source of power, change, and upheaval.
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Squeezing cherry-picked facts into a simplistic narrative
- By Erik A. Ritland on 11-24-20
By: Ted Gioia
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12 Notes
- On Life and Creativity
- By: Quincy Jones
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Quincy Jones
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Wisdom and musings on creativity and life from one of the world’s most beloved musicians, producers, and mentors, Quincy Jones. 12 Notes is a self-development guide that will affirm that creativity is a calling that can and should be answered, no matter your age or experience.
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I lived these notes with Quincy
- By Thomas Bähler on 04-29-22
By: Quincy Jones
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White Bicycles
- Making Music in the 1960s
- By: Joe Boyd
- Narrated by: Joe Boyd
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Joe Boyd tells of his journey through Sixties music, from tour managing Muddy Waters and Coleman Hawkins, to plugging in Bob Dylan's electric guitar while working as production manager at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, to becoming a leading record producer. His first session was Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood's "Crossroads" followed by Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, the Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny and many more.
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Fascinating story, monotone reading
- By Carl Howard on 07-09-19
By: Joe Boyd
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Easily Slip into Another World
- A Life in Music
- By: Henry Threadgill, Brent Hayes Edwards
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Henry Threadgill has had a singular life in music. At 79, the saxophonist, flautist, and celebrated composer is one of three jazz artists (along with Ornette Coleman and Wynton Marsalis) to have won a Pulitzer Prize. In Easily Slip into Another World, Threadgill recalls his childhood and upbringing in Chicago, his family life and education, and his brilliant career in music.
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A brilliant, rich, inspiring book
- By Nina d'Alessandro on 02-25-25
By: Henry Threadgill, and others
What listeners say about 3 Shades of Blue
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- VAJ
- 06-06-24
important American History
informative, enlightening and entertaining. An unfiltered view of American musical history. A must read/ listen for those interested in American music.
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- Christopher Cowan
- 07-12-24
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.
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- Claudia I Saldi
- 05-14-24
Superb
Well researched and written. Great concept for a book that expanded my knowledge of Jazz and history. Beautiful and thoughtful narration. I will read other books by the author and will seek out the narrator's other work.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Dr. Mike McCann
- 12-18-24
Terrific interesting view of important era
This compelling narrative is a treasure trove of stories and biography of artists on the move. It also illuminates the sad history of lives of great artists ruined by drug abuse.
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- L. Sorogheye
- 04-14-24
The history of 3 jazz greats
I loved learning the back story of their lifestyle , character and of their natural talent .
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- Emmanuel Iroanya
- 01-25-25
Captivating story
You don’t have to be a lover of jazz music to appreciate the story about three of the most influential artists of the genre. Highly recommended
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- Stephen W
- 07-13-24
Fantastic Telling of 3 Lives and Jazz Music
This book provides great background on modern jazz in general and the lives of the three principles leading up to the album, Kind of Blue. Dion Graham is super and a perfect narrator for this book. His phrasing added to the inherent drama of the story. With great strengths come great weaknesses. And sadly, this story is also about the self destructive behavior of the three principals, along with Bird, and others. The longest chapter of the book is an extended coda following Miles, Evans and Coltrane post 1959. It has moments of joy but is also a slow march to the inevitable ends of the three musicians. The first half of the book added needed context and background for, what turns out to be a brief interlude in the history of Jazz and music in general. All the more precious for its brevity. Highly recommended.
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- FUN AND GAMES
- 07-02-24
everything about this book stood out!
I loved the whole book from beginning to end. it gave me a lot of information about the artists that I did not know. this was an amazing book!
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- Anonymous User
- 10-10-24
A fresh look at three jazz giants
I deeply enjoyed this three part biography. It gave a fresh and unique look at the three giants of jazz. Most attention was spent on Miles, with perhaps too little on Evans. The treatment of Coltrane did not yield much new insights, but given the private nature of the man, the author should not be faulted for that. The story seemed to end too abruptly. Also, I was left longing for more knowledge of a link between then and now, or even whether one exists. The author often left the impression that the jazz art form is dead or almost so. I was left wondering if he had written a similar treatment of say Bach, Beethoven, etc would he also say that classical music is dead? Why must we always return to this proclamation about jazz? Certainly it has something to do with society’s radicalized treatment of the art form and musicians. Nevertheless, I learned much in this book about the epochs of the music and its leading practitioners. I have recommended it highly to my friends. Thanks much to the author for the incredible and tedious hard work putting this together. It deserves a serious read by the lovers of jazz and music art forms.
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- Errol B.
- 05-12-24
The early death of genius
This book provided a history of what is IMO the golden age of Jazz. It filled in the gaps left by the Ken Burns documentary.
I knew that many of these musicians lived hard lives and died young, but hearing about it in this book really brought home the deviation and loss.
This books also made me realize that the bulk of the jazz music I listen to and love was recorded from 1950 to 1965. I’m one of those who John Coltrane lost after A Love Supreme. I am not yet able to appreciate free jazz. Don’t know if I ever will.
This book is worth a read for jazz lovers and cultural history buffs alike. Highly recommend.
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