**The National Bestseller • One of The Minneapolis Star Tribune's Best Books of the Year“A superb book...[Kaplan is] a master biographer, a dogged researcher and shaper of narrative, and this is his most ambitious book to date.” —Los Angeles TimesFrom the author of the definitive biography of Frank Sinatra, the story of three towering artists—Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans—and how they came together to create the most iconic jazz album of all t...

'At last, Sinatra has the biography he deserves' - The Irish TimesFrank Sinatra was the best-known entertainer of his century - infinitely charismatic, more legendary and notorious than any other public personality of his era. But no matter what you think, you don't know him.In this critically acclaimed biography, James Kaplan reveals how Sinatra made listening to pop music a more personal experience than it had ever been. We relive the years 1915 ...

Just in time for the Chairman's centennial, the endlessly absorbing sequel to James Kaplan's bestselling Frank: The VoiceFinally the definitive biography that Frank Sinatra, justly termed 'The Entertainer of the Century,' deserves and requires. Like Peter Guralnick on Elvis, Kaplan goes behind the legend to give us the man in full, in his many guises and aspects: peerless singer, (sometimes) powerful actor, business mogul, tireless lover and associate of t...

Frank Sinatra was the best-known entertainer of the twentieth century—infinitely charismatic, lionized and notorious in equal measure. But despite his mammoth fame, Sinatra the man has remained an enigma. Now James Kaplan brings deeper insight than ever before to the complex psyche and turbulent life behind that incomparable voice, from Sinatra’s humble beginning in Hoboken to his fall from grace and Oscar-winning return in From Here to Eternity. Here at last is the biographer who...

1959 saw Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the other members of Miles’s sextet come together to record the bestselling jazz album of all time: Kind of Blue.3 Shades of Blue follows the paths of Miles, Coltrane and Evans to the mountaintop of 1959 and their roads on from there. It’s a book about music and business, race and heroin, and an astonishing meditation on creativity and the strange hothouses that can produce its full flowering. But above all this ...

From the prizewinning Jewish Lives series, a fast†‘moving, musically astute portrait of arguably the greatest composer of American popular musicIrving Berlin (1888–1989) has been called—by George Gershwin, among others—the greatest songwriter of the golden age of the American popular song. “Berlin has no place in American music,” legendary composer Jerome Kern wrote; “he is American music.” In a career that spanned an astonishing nine deca...

1959 saw Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the other members of Miles’s sextet come together to record the seminal jazz album of all time Kind of Blue.3 Shades of Blue is a magnificent, blended biography on the meandering paths which led Miles, Coltrane and Evans to the mountaintop of 1959 and the aftermath. It’s a book about music, business, race, addiction and the cities that gave jazz its home; from New York and LA to Philadelphia, Chicago and Kansas ...

**The National Bestseller • One of The Minneapolis Star Tribune's Best Books of the Year“A superb book...[Kaplan is] a master biographer, a dogged researcher and shaper of narrative, and this is his most ambitious book to date.” —Los Angeles TimesFrom the author of the definitive biography of Frank Sinatra, the story of three towering artists—Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans—and how they came together to create the most iconic jazz album of all t...

Bestselling author James Kaplan redefines Frank Sinatra in a triumphant new biography that includes many rarely seen photographs.Frank Sinatra was the best-known entertainer of the twentieth century—infinitely charismatic, lionized and notorious in equal measure. But despite his mammoth fame, Sinatra the man has remained an enigma. As Bob Spitz did with the Beatles, Tina Brown for Diana, and Peter Guralnick for Elvis, James Kaplan goes behind the legend and hype to...

A fast-moving, musically astute portrait of arguably the greatest composer of American popular music Irving Berlin (1888-1989) has been called-by George Gershwin, among others-the greatest songwriter of the golden age of the American popular song. "Berlin has no place in American music," legendary composer Jerome Kern wrote; "he is American music." In a career that spanned an astonishing nine decades, Berlin wrote some fifteen hundred tunes, including "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "God Bless...

In a memoir by turns moving, tragic, and hilarious, Jerry Lewis recounts with crystal clarity every step of his fifty-year friendship with Dean Martin.They were the unlikeliest of pairs—a handsome crooner and a skinny monkey, an Italian from Steubenville, Ohio, and a Jew from Newark, N.J.. Before they teamed up, Dean Martin seemed destined for a mediocre career as a nightclub singer, and Jerry Lewis was dressing up as Carmen Miranda and miming records on stage. But...

A no-holds-barred, intimate memoir by John McEnroe—the bad boy of professional tennis.John McEnroe stunned the tennis elite when he came out of nowhere to make the Wimbledon semifinals at the age of eighteen—and just a few years later, he was ranked number one in the world. You Cannot Be Serious is McEnroe at his most personal, an intimate examination of Johnny Mac, the kid from Queens, and his “wild ride” through the world of professional tennis at a boom...