Scott Rhee's Reviews > 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

Musically, my life has been a series of phases. In middle school, I was mostly into Top 40. In high school, I started listening to “alternative/progressive”. In college, it was all about grunge. My senior year, I started listening to a lot of jazz and blues. I listen to more blues than jazz nowadays, but my tastes, at age 51, are pretty eclectic. My CD collection in my car (and, yes, I am well aware of how old that statement makes me) runs the gamut: 311, the Killers, Taylor Swift, Childish Gambino, Muddy Waters. This is just in my car, mind you.

My point? I am always changing, and my tastes are always changing. True growth, I believe, only happens if you’re willing to evolve. The person who listens to nothing but Jimmy Buffett or Bob Dylan or gangsta rap their whole lives may know what they like, but I can guarantee that they’re pretty boring to talk to at a dinner party.

James Kaplan’s book “3 Shades of Blue” is a biography of three extremely talented jazz musicians: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans. It’s also a “biography” of a particular album. In 1959, “Kind of Blue” hit record stores. It is, according to virtually all music critics, one of the best jazz recordings ever recorded. How it came to be, and the legacy it left behind is what the book is about.

My main takeaway from the book is how the three main musicians at the heart of this book each pushed themselves to change and evolve. They were never satisfied with where they were, musically and in life. While this was, in some ways, pathetic and sad, it was ultimately beneficial for them musically. They were always looking for that next big step. They were always trying new things, some of which worked, some of which didn’t. If they happened to lose their audience occasionally, it didn’t matter: it was all part of the process.

Kaplan’s book isn’t all a cheery and nice account of musical innovation. Part of each musician’s evolution involved a lot of hard and, in some cases, self-destructive life choices. The prevalence of abuse from heroin and other substances seemed to be almost a natural albeit horrible choice for jazz musicians. Accompanying that was the shattered relationships and financial problems that followed many of these musicians to their death.

Their legacy, though, is a rich and wonderful oeuvre of fantastic music. It’s not for everyone, of course, but then again, it was never really meant to be.