I stumbled on this book when I was browsing the stacks at a local bookstore, and the title intrigued me. I owned a copy of Kind of Blue and played it when the mood struck me, and hearing some of my youngest's high school friends play Freddie Freeloader as part of the jazz band* they put together their junior and senior years only reignited my interest in that era of Jazz. While I'd known about the basics surrounding the lead-up to the creation of Kind of Blue, courtesy of the Ken Burns documentary series Jazz, the detailed biography and intersection of Miles, John, and Bill was relatively unknown to me.
The book begins with a retelling of James Kaplan's interview with Miles Davis for Vanity Fair back in 1989. As James tells it, his brother somehow convinced an editor at Vanity Fair that James knew all about jazz and so the editor gave him the job of interviewing the often difficult Miles. James promptly freaked out and crammed for the interview prior to showing up for what was originally to be one hour. Apparently Miles was taken with James and was very generous with his time, forming a lasting impression on James which led to this article (found in the Vanity Fair web archives) and a lifelong interest in jazz.
James then proceeds into both a biography of the three men, interweaving their tales with the progression of jazz from the Big Band era into Bebop and beyond. Some biographers would stop at the point of creation of Kind of Blue, but not Kaplan. He puts the album into perspective by showing the direction the three --and jazz itself-- went after that inflection point. After all, 1959 was also the year of the release by Ornette Coleman of The Shape of Jazz to Come, which announced to the world the presence of what is now known as Free Jazz. At that point, jazz began to move toward the avant-garde in the same way modern Classic Music did in the same time general time period.
If you're a student of the music, or just enjoy music in general, you might find the book fascinating. And more than a bit sad.
Why sad? Because the history of jazz is littered with corpses, slaves to another mistress: drugs.
Miles also noted that the session was punctuated by the arrival of "all these hustlers and dope dealers looking for Bird [Charlie Parker]"--who kept disappearing into the bathroom, then coming back "all fucked up and shit. But after Bird got high, he just played his ass off."
And there it was, inexorably entwined with the growing fame that this album would accelerate, a coded message to young aspirants, the first two premises of a siren syllogism: Bird does heroin. Bird plays like a god on heroin. Young musicians could draw the obvious, but spurious, conclusion. And to the sorrow of so many, many did.
--From 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool, Pages 65-66.
There are times when it was difficult to read about these incredible musicians as junkies who could create masterful improvisational pieces night after night, particularly given my personal aversion to needles.** Knowing also that other jazz musicians of that era such as Dizzy Gillespie or Dave Brubeck eschewed drugs and still performed at a high level turns the triple biography into a tragedy, one that you can see coming a mile away.
Another theme of the book is the racism experienced by the jazz musicians, and how they responded to such racism. You could draw a direct line between the racism experienced by all three and their consequent drug addictions, and from there to their eventual decline and death.
Still, there's the music. Oh god, the music.
I get it: jazz isn't for everyone. I'm not about to make any converts here, because like, say, an Irish Stout or an India Pale Ale when you are exposed mainly to American Lagers, it takes some getting used to.
Jazz and popular music split a long time ago, much longer than I've been alive, but I've made a living of finding music, books, and games off the beaten path.*** The beauty and tragedy of Jazz is wrapped up in the beauty and tragedy of countless artistic endeavors, and as long as there's music to be made, Jazz will endure. 3 Shades of Blue was a great book to absorb, and I spent way too many late hours reading it before I realized I had to get at least some sleep before I had to wake up for work the next day.
*The band's name was called Kinda Jazzy, in a self-deprecating fashion. They played in at least one jazz club around Cincinnati, somehow managing to be allowed to play despite none of them being old enough to actually drink at the establishment.
**Yes, I know, I have to deal with needles due to my medical conditions, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it.
***If you don't think MMOs aren't popular, just remember that WoW had at its peak 13-14 million subscribers globally in a world of 8 billion people. That's less than 0.2% of the global population.
That book's a perennial in the music section of the bookstore where I work. I really ought to read it some time.
ReplyDeleteI have a strange relationship with jazz, or more specifically bebop, cool jazz and the whole period the book covers. I react very positively to much of it the moment I hear it, which makes me think I really like it, but then after I've been listening to it for a few minutes I start to find it quite irritating so I have to stop. I've got a Miles Davis CD box set of four of his best albums and I can only ever get through about half a side of any of them at one go. And yet I like everything on all of them Weird.
My introduction to the kind of music we're talking about came, weirdly, through my teen and twenties obsession with Lou Reed. Ornette Coleman was apparently one of his greatest influences and the two of them did eventually record together, albeit on one of Lou's later albums that I haven't heard. I knew the name through Lou dropping it in interviews, though, which is how, as a teenager, i came to own exactly one jazz album, the name of which I can't now remember. i still have it but I'm not going to go and search through over a thousand unsorted vinyl albums to find it. I did listen to it a lot, though, and I don't recall having the same on/off reaction so I probably ought to try listening to some more by him.
Also, not to make this comment even longer, but I keep reading that jazz is having a huge resurgence of interest among Gen Z (Most likely because as teens they were pretty hard pushed to find anything their parents would object to!) There's also a huge jazz influence in all kinds of current pop music, particularly all the drum&bass stuff, or that's what I'm hearing in it, anyway.
Miles is a difficult person to read about. He was a musical genius, with an ego to match, but his genius was also matched by his self-destructive tendencies. Sprinkle on top of that his proclivity to be abusive to women (shades of James Brown) and you've got a very divisive figure. I know that some people want to cancel creatives who hold problematic views or do problematic things, but it's very hard to tell the history of Music without incorporating figures such as Richard Wagner or Miles Davis and the music they created.
DeleteGiven that my three kids --two firmly Gen Z and the oldest on the borderline between Millenials and Gen Z-- had been knee deep in music over their upbringing, it's not a shock to me that at least one became influenced by Jazz. Our youngest played in their high school's Ambassador Jazz Band for three years (here's a video made in May 2021 that features her on the drum kit), and her friends have gone far deeper into an exploration of Jazz than she has.
You know, that Ken Burns series came out in 2001, which is at the right time to be an influence on the kids' generation. That music teachers use Jazz in school programs didn't hurt either.
Free Jazz is something that I can listen to once in a very great while, but I can't get more than a few minutes into a piece before I simply tune it out. Given that Lou Reed ran in avant-garde circles back in the day, it's not a surprise that he would be influenced by Ornette Coleman.