‘3 Shades of Blue’ author to speak at the library

The Tuxedo Park Library Authors’ Circle will host journalist and biographer James Kaplan who will be in conversation about his book “3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool” with Gerald Howard. The event will take place at the Tuxedo Park Library on Friday Sept. 26 at 5:30 p.m.

Kaplan and Howard will discuss the book, which tells the story of three towering artists — Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans — and how they came together to create “Kind of Blue,” one of the most iconic jazz albums of all time. It’s a book about music, business, race, heroin, the cities that gave jazz its home, and the Black geniuses behind its rise. An astonishing meditation on creativity and the strange environments where it can flourish most, the book is also about the great forebears and founders of a lost era, the disrupters who would take the music down truly new paths, and why the world of jazz most people know is a museum to this never-replicated period.

Kaplan’s essays, stories, reviews, and profiles have appeared in numerous magazines, including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Esquire, and New York. His novels include “Pearl’s Progress” and “Two Guys from Verona” which was a New York Times Notable Book for 1998. His nonfiction works include “The Airport,” “You Cannot Be Serious,” (coauthored with John McEnroe), “Dean & Me: A Love Story (with Jerry Lewis),” “Frank: The Voice,” and “Sinatra: The Chairman.” He is a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow who lives in Westchester, N.Y.

Howard is the recently retired vice president and executive editor from Doubleday Books. He is a recipient of the Maxwell E. Perkins Award whose essays and reviews have appeared in Bookforum, Lit Hub, n+1, The New York Times Book Review, and other publications.

Limited seating will be available at Tuxedo Park Library for this discussion, which will also be livestreamed on Zoom. Register to attend in person or virtually by calling the library at (845) 351-2207 or at tuxedoparklibrary.org/calendar. The livestream recording will be available on the library’s YouTube channel following the event. Hardcover copies of 3 Shades of Blue will be available for purchase at the Tuxedo Park Library.

Limited seating will be available for this discussion, which will also be live-streamed on Zoom. Register to attend in person or virtually by calling the library at (845) 351-2207 or at tuxedoparklibrary.org/calendar. The livestream recording will be available on the library’s YouTube channel following the event. Hardcover copies of “3 Shades of Blue” will be available for purchase at the Tuxedo Park Library which is located at 227 NY-17 in Tuxedo Park.