If You Read One Book...
Three Shades of Blue author James Kaplan lives right here in the 8495
James Kaplan’s Three Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool, is an essential part of any jazz fan’s reading collection, or should be, anyway. (Illustration by AW Araujo under Creative Commons license)
James Kaplan should rightfully be considered a very important person in spreading the magic of jazz, but don’t look for him on stage any time soon.
“I have always noodled around on the piano,” James told 8495Jazz. “I can play Monk chords on the piano. I have a good ear, something close to perfect pitch. I can find sonorities and chords and modes that are interesting to my ear. But at the same time, I recognize that as a pianist, I am a good writer. So I can tinkle around a little bit and entertain myself – but not even a small crowd at a party.”
Nor should you look too often for James bon vivanting around at The Blue Note, Dizzy’s, Small’s, or any of the other Manhattan hotspots, though they are a short train ride away from his home in Hastings, NY.
“I will confess to you that I am not a big attender of live music – I wonder about myself sometimes and if that says something awful about me. I’ve been writing a book recently about John Lennon and Paul McCartney. And John Lennon famously hated to go and hear live music. He strongly preferred listening to records.
“Having said that, I did go to the Litchfield Jazz Festival in July. I was invited by a friend and comped a ticket and it was great. I sat there in awe listening to some amazing music. So I have a checkered relationship to live performance – I wish I could tell you I haunt the Village Vanguard. But I’m a writer. I don’t leave the house much.”
As writers go, he is what used to be called a man of letters; an author of fiction and non-fiction of a wide variety, from celebrity magazine profiles and biographies, including the definitive two-volume biography of Frank Sinatra, to the inner workings of New York’s Kennedy Airport.
From a jazz fan’s perspective, though, we need to talk about Three Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool, his 2024 exploration of the lives and careers of the three, pivoting around the 1959 recording of Kind of Blue, the default “greatest jazz album of all time.”
In any given field, one could probably point to a very short list of books that offer the quintessence of their subject matter. As a historian, for instance, I have read volume upon volume of books about the Civil War. But one book – The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War, loaded with period photos, maps, and illustrations, with narrative written by Bruce Catton (the written word’s Ken Burns, if you will) – provides the greatest and most concise context for anybody who wishes to be well informed short of pursuing “nerd” status.
The exact same can be said of Three Shades of Blue. In fact, were one to place Three Shades next to Kansas City Lightning, the late Stanley Crouch’s 2013 biography of young Charlie Parker, on the bookshelf, one would be very hard pressed indeed to find a better concise two-volume resource about the origins of modern jazz’s post-World War II golden age and the central place it held in the American cultural landscape before rock ‘n’ roll and tribalism and the splintering of the media ecosystem.
“It was a time when every medium and large city in the United States – impossible to imagine now – had a newspaper,” James said. “And every newspaper had a music columnist. And every music columnist wrote about Sinatra and they wrote about Miles Davis. And Sarah Vaughan, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald. These were household names for anybody who claimed any sort of cultural viability in those days.”
By the time James met Miles in 1989, though, such knowledge of jazz was no longer a prerequisite for cultural viability, at least in mass popular culture. By then, Coltrane’s saxophone had been silent for 22 years, Evans’s piano for almost 10. But Miles endured, in the flesh and in legend, though he had but two years left to live. In the first chapter of Three Shades, James hilariously recalls how a greatly inflated telling of his jazz knowledge from his brother landed him an assignment from Vanity Fair, then about the slickest of the Madison Avenue slicks, to interview Miles in the publicity run-up to the publication of his autobiography.
“I knew Miles Davis was a titan in his field; I knew he’d played with Charlie Parker in the 1940s. That was about it,” he wrote.
“I really knew next to nothing at that point,” he told 8495Jazz. “I knew that I loved old fashioned jazz. I loved people like James Reese Europe. And I knew that I loved very early jazz, but didn’t know much besides that and a tiny little bit of Miles.
“But doing that piece really galvanized me, and meeting Miles did. And his kindness to me really galvanized me and I set about educating myself. My current relationship to the music is that I love it very much and I am still learning. I am still trying to educate my ear. I’m still trying to be able to hear the difference between J.J. Johnson and – name another trombone player. I try to do little blindfold tests on myself – whose tenor is that? Whose alto? Is that Hank Mobley? How come Miles got bored with Hank Mobley? So I am still educating my ear and falling deeper and deeper in love with the music. There is no end to it, really.”
He also recommends that anyone interested in learning more about jazz should follow their own instincts, critics’ “best of” lists be damned.
“My sage advice is – don’t worry about it. You’ll like some stuff and hate some stuff. I have always had a difficulty – I’ve always sort of bounced off free jazz. I can appreciate Ornette Coleman. I have a son who is crazy about Ornette Coleman. We saw him live at Lincoln Center and I’m delighted I had that opportunity. Then I think about what Roy Eldridge said about Ornette Coleman – ‘I’ve listened to him straight, I’ve listened to him stoned, and I think he’s jiving me.’ So who knows? That was Roy Eldridge. Stay with what you love. Stay with what gives you goose bumps.
“Sometimes you get in a little bit of despair about the world, but this morning I was looking at my Instagram and there are Cécile McLorin Salvant and Sullivan Fortner, Jr., doing some Cole Porter songs together, I think in her apartment or his. Very informally, and it made me feel very warm inside. I don’t think either one of them is over 35 years old and they are geniuses, both of them. And the music lives with people like that.”
And it lives with James Kaplan, obviously. And it lives with you as you read this, because there are plenty of other ways to occupy your time. But here you are.
Author James Kaplan lives in the 8495 and this presentation was given for Litchfield, CT’s Oliver Wolcott Library, shortly after Three Shades of Blue was published in 2024.
Swinging Saturdays registration open
Registration for Litchfield Performing Arts’ Swinging Saturdays, for students aged 12-17, is now open. The program, which will run from late January through June at New Haven’s Educational Center for the Arts, is free of charge and is absolutely jam-packed with activities that make me want to go alter my birth certificate - concerts, instruction from LPA’s faculty and guest artists of renown, and field trips. Did I mention it’s free? All the information you need to register is right here.
Out and About with 8495Jazz
These listings are a curated sampling of shows in the region. As an independent resource for jazz news, 8495Jazz does not receive any consideration, free tickets, or affiliate fees for these listings. Please confirm events are still happening directly with the venue.
8495Jazz Wild Card Gig of the Week
Chan’s, Woonsocket, RI
Greg Abate Super Sextet, Saturday, Jan. 17, 7 pm. GA $25 advance, $30 at the door.
8495Jazz Spur of the Moment Gig TODAY
Daryl’s House Club, Pawling, NY
Sally Baby’s Silver Dollars, 7 pm. GA $22.03 including service fee, reserved seating $33.84 including service fee
Other Upcoming Shows
Hartford Public Library, Hartford, CT
Baby Grand Jazz, Lee Fish & Friends (drums, combo), today, 3 pm. Free.
Palace Theater Poli Club, Waterbury, CT
Matt & Atla DeChamplain (piano, vocals), Friday, Jan. 16, 7 and 9 pm. $40 including service fee.
Berklee Performance Center, Boston, MA
Tyshawn Sorey Trio (drums, combo), Friday, Jan. 16, 8 pm. $34 - $72 including service fee.
Elicit Brewing Co., Manchester, CT
Hartford Jazz Orchestra, Monday, Jan. 12, 7:30 pm. Free.
The Side Door, Old Lyme, CT
Pat Bianchi Trio (organ, combo), Saturday, Jan. 17, GA $54.45, students $27.98 including service fee.
VFW Post 399, Westport, CT
James Weidman and Harvie S (piano, bass, combo), Thursday, Jan. 15, 7:30 and 8:45 pm. GA $20.76, student/vet $15.76 for 7:30 show, GA $10.76 for 8:45 show.
Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT
Instantiations (improvisational combo), Sunday, Jan. 18, 2:30 pm. GA $16.50, student $9.50 including service fee.
If you’re citybound…
Winter Jazzfest, New York City, Jan. 8-13. Full artist lineup including venues here.
Film at 7
Jazz Forum Arts, Tarrytown, NY, will feature the documentary film, The Best of the Best: Jazz From Detroit, Thursday, Jan. 16 at 7 pm, followed by a 30-minute Q&A with the filmmakers. GA $27.25, students $22 including service fee.
Jams
Cafe Nine, New Haven CT
New Haven Jazz Underground jam, usually 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month: free admission
Saturday jazz jam most Saturdays, 4 pm. Free.
Blackeyed Sally’s, Hartford, CT
Jazz Wednesdays, featured set 7 pm, jam session afterward.
Carmine’s, East Hartford, CT
Paisley’s All Star Memorial Jam, 3rd Tuesday of the month, 7:30 pm. House band set followed by jam. Free.
Mahoney’s, Poughkeepsie, NY
Poughkeepsie Jazz Project, every Tuesday, 7 pm. Free.
Park City Music Hall, Bridgeport, CT
Scott Cushman and Friends followed by jam, first Wednesday of the month.
The Parlour, Providence, RI
First Sunday Jam (first Sunday of the month) with Ben Shaw Quartet followed by jam, music starts at 6. Jammers $5, audience $10.
The District, Providence, RI
Newport Jazz Presents Jam Sessions, 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month, 8 pm. House band followed by jam.
Groton Hill Music Center, Groton, MA
Jams every second Tuesday of the month through June, 7 pm. $10 at the door, no advance sales.
Jazz Societies and Organizations (great info on events, festivals, and more)
Jazz Society of Fairfield County
Jazz Fridays at Three Sheets New Haven 1st/3rd Fridays from 6-9pm
Jazz Thursdays at The Cannon New Haven every other Thurs from 7-9pm.
8495Jazz takes its name from the two Interstate highways that cross our region, I-84 and I-95. Within short driving distances from either, you can find incredible entertainment, from local jams to world-famous festivals in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. 8495Jazz: From Newburgh to Newport!
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