3 SHADES OF BLUE:
Miles Davis, John Coltrane,
Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire
of Cool
James Kaplan
Penguin Press
496 pages
By Gary Carter
“It is the player who, by improvising, makes jazz,” once concluded Leonard Bernstein. “He uses the popular song as a kind of dummy to hang his notes on. He dresses it up in his own way and it comes out an original.”
And there’s absolutely no doubt Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans were heavyweight masters of this art, as proven throughout this creative endeavor that digs deep into the lives of these three jazz giants as they move toward a certain pinnacle. James Kaplan is not your standard off-the-shelf biographer gathering and reporting facts, but more a storyteller weaving a tale both charming and troubling that becomes almost novelistic in its form. His main characters are larger than life with drives and appetites that power them into and over obstacles in service to their talents.
There are plenty of facts here, but also revealing insights gathered through past recountings and more recent interviews. And, despite acknowledging he’s not a hardcore jazz expert, Kaplan provides a historic overview of the birth and evolution of the musical form that sets the foundation for this foray into the trials, tribulations and sometimes successes of this trio.
Jazz is considered by most to have been birthed in America, with New Orleans long claiming the crown of the home of jazz. History says the roots lay in the city’s Congo Square where slaves would congregate on Sundays when they didn’t have to work. According to the Ken Burns documentary, Jazz, those gathered “would sing, play music and dance, swaying back and forth to the songs of their home countries. Caribbean music from the West Indies mixed with beats from Africa and church melodies from the United States’ South.”
The roots of Davis, Coltrane and Evans also reached deep into the nation’s belly. The family of Davis, born on the banks of the Mississippi just north of St. Louis, hailed from Arkansas, where as a boy he heard the story of jealous whites driving his grandfather from the 500-acre parcel he had purchased. Coltrane was born in High Point, North Carolina, where he took shelter in music at a time when African American boys were often encouraged to take music lessons to stay out of trouble and as a possible way up and out. Evans, on the other hand, was a New Jersey kid trained in classical music until he enrolled in Southeastern Louisiana College, where he was close enough to New Orleans to fall under the spell of jazz.
As they emerge onto the scene young, hungry, and honing their licks, there’s a continuous crackle of creativity as the lives of Davis, Coltrane, and Evans during the 1940s and 1950s follow parallel paths that often intersect when they join musical forces, then splinter as egos and desires clash, groups rise and fall, fellow players come and go. The three fully and finally intertwine on March 2 and April 22, 1959, in two brief recording sessions that produce what’s widely considered the greatest jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue.
It’s a slow, painful progression to a singular shining moment as all three men are caught in the dark undercurrent that haunts the jazz scene throughout those decades. According to trumpeter Red Rodney, “Heroin was our badge. It was the thing that gave us membership in a unique club, and for this membership we gave up everything else in the world. Every ambition. Every desire. Everything. It ruined most people.”
Davis, Coltrane, and Evans all succumbed to the drug’s siren song, starting early as the heroin-soaked aura of Charlie “Bird” Parker loomed large over young players looking for the groove. And though all three men would sometimes shake the habit, they never broke the spell completely. Yet each continued beyond Kind of Blue to create and produce remarkable music that often broke new ground. Kaplan follows these efforts and, unfortunately, the downward spirals that colored their later careers as they literally forced themselves to perform, both to support their habits but also keep making music.
One achievement for which Kaplan earns a hearty nod is his acknowledgement of the many other jazz players who shared their talents with Davis, Coltrane, and Evans over the years both in live performance and recordings. And, in particular, his mention of those recordings should send a reader in search of music that can soothe the soul, even if it couldn’t save these three talented musicians. –Gary Carter