3 Shades of Blue Quotes

“Ted Joans carried “a blackjack and a napkin filled with hot pepper to throw in their eyes in case I was attacked.” LeRoi Jones had a similar strategy”
― James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

“he liked to show his music students, who idolized Coltrane as the seminal figure of jazz saxophone, the photo from the Elate Club concert. “I say, ‘Well, if it started with Coltrane, what is he doin’ about to burn his hand lookin’ at Charlie Parker play, with his mouth open?’ ”
― James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

“One day on a break, we’re at the Three Deuces and Miles comes back and he’s cocky, you know. He goes up to Dizzy and says, “I can play anything you can play,” and Dizzy smiles and says, “Yeah, but an octave lower.”
― James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

“Miles Davis got to sit in Buddy Anderson’s chair for the Eckstine band’s entire two-week stand at the Riviera—though the two weeks were more memorable to the eighteen-year-old than to anybody else. As Eckstine recalled, “Miles, you couldn’t even hear him past the reed section.”
― James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

“Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself. Miles”
― James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

“Miles, on the other hand, did just that, frequenting the Juilliard library and taking out scores by Stravinsky, Berg, and Prokofiev. I wanted to see what was going on in all of music. Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery, and I just couldn’t believe someone could be that close to freedom and not take advantage of it.”
― James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

“Miles, on the other hand, did just that, frequenting the Juilliard library and taking out scores by Stravinsky, Berg, and Prokofiev.”
― James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

“I think [it represented] a break from when jazz players had to be entertainers. And especially bebop as exemplified by Charlie Parker, who used to stand up straight—he didn’t dance around and all that stuff. He played all this great music. And it sort of was a harbinger of things to come in the social world. All races of people appreciated what a great music bebop was. And with Charlie Parker especially—I think there was a sort of racial thing where it was trying to straighten up American society.”
― James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

“Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery,”
― James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

“Well, if it started with Coltrane, what is he doin’ about to burn his hand lookin’ at Charlie Parker play, with his mouth open?’ ”
― James Kaplan, 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool