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PODCAST

The Third Story with Leo Sidran

THE THIRD STORY features long-form interviews with creative people of all types, hosted by musician Leo Sidran. Their stories of discovery, loss, ambition, identity, risk, and reward are deeply moving and compelling for all of us as we embark on our own creative journeys.

music

All Episodes

01:09:02

231: Cyrille Aimée

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/09/06

Long before singer Cyrille Aimée spent any time on the road she was already a citizen of the world. She grew up in a small French town, Samois-sur-Seine, but says that she never felt fully French. She never felt fully any one thing. Her mother is Dominican, her father is French, and she says that “when you’re a mixed culture, you’re kind of your own thing.” Samois-sur-Seine is very small but in the 1990s of Cyrille’s childhood it did have one claim to fame: it was the town where the legendary french

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56:24

Creed Taylor from 2015

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/08/30

Creed Taylor was an inspiration to generations of music lovers. He was behind some of the greatest records ever made. He passed away on August 22 at the age of 93. For forty years, Creed Taylor was one of a small handful of jazz record producers and label managers who shaped and defined the sound of jazz recording. Through his work with the Bethlehem, ABC, Impulse!, Verve, and CTI labels, he produced classic albums for countless artists. He introduced us to "The Girl From Ipanema," "Mister Magic"

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01:15:25

Louis Cato from 2018

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/08/23

Earlier this month Stephen Colbert made an announcement about his band. Jon Batiste would be leaving and Louis Cato would be the new musical director. For some, Louis Cato is not a familiar name. In fact he has been hiding in plain sight for years now, both as a member of Batiste’s Stay Human Late Show band and also as what he refers to as a super sideman. Louis Cato is living proof that some people are simply given a gift. Born in Lisbon, Portugal and raised mostly in North Carolina, Louis began

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48:09

230: Ben Sidran at 79

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/08/14

For the fourth year in a row, I talked to my dad, musician/producer/journalist/philosopher Ben Sidran in honor of his birthday. This time he’s turning 79 and we consider the sociological implications of mowing the lawn, Donald Fagen’s solo recordings, the significance of the 1960s in popular culture today, Pharoah Sanders album Pharoah’s First, interviews he conducted in the 1980s with Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, the myth of Sisyphus, and his most recent album Swing State. www.third-story.com

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01:17:02

229: John Medeski

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/08/09

For John Medeski, music has always been about healing. "Music just kind of sucked me up," he says. "For me having music was a great way to deal with the hard things in life. "Best known as one-third of the avant-garde jazz / funk trio Medeski, Martin & Wood (aka MMW), Medeski began playing piano as a kid, growing up in Florida. By high school, he was sitting in with the likes of Jaco Pastorius and Mark Murphy. He lived in Boston for college, and then in New York in his 20s. But Medeski was always

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01:28:05

Noga Erez from 2020

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/08/02

Israeli singer Noga Erez thinks about the fallacy of authenticity, the advantages of creative limitations, the way personal stories can be perceived as political, and what it means to make music with your heart instead of your head. She started out as a jazz singer, performing and recording her original songs with a piano trio. Those recordings are long gone, lost in a pile of defective harddrives. But anyway, she decided that her original concept was too intellectual and that it was time to make

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01:12:55

228: Emmet Cohen

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/07/26

Within about a week of home quarantine in March 2020, pianist Emmet Cohen started live-streaming shows every Monday night from his apartment in Harlem. At first it was just Cohen and his bandmates, drummer Kyle Poole and bassist Russell Hall, set up in Cohen’s living room. Eventually they started inviting guests, and Emmet’s Place became one of the spots for live jazz in pandemic New York. Six months in, it had really caught on: the Emmet’s Place performance of “La Vie en Rose” featuring singer

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13:08

227: Umbria Jazz

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/07/19

Although the conditions that created jazz are distinctly American, without Europe it seems clear that it might not survive. Every summer hundreds of the greatest practitioners of the music and hundreds of thousands of fans gather across Europe at the major festivals to come together and celebrate it. These gatherings provide a much needed opportunity for what the musicians refer to as “the hang”. Producer Matt Pierson explained it this way: “It is an American music and we love our homeland but in

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01:28:04

226: Montreal Jazz Festival

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/07/12

After a two-year slowdown due to COVID, the Montreal International Jazz Festival came back this year. I had been there a couple times, in and out, as a musician. I went this year to cover the festival's full return for WBGO and The Third Story. When you’re a musician at a festival like MJF, the job is actually pretty clear. You get to the gig, play the gig, pack up and go to the next gig. But what does a member of the press do in this situation? I was given a credential badge to wear with the word

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01:01:14

Julian Lage from 2021

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/07/05

When Julian Lage plays guitar, it’s hard not to get swept up in it. His relationship with the instrument is natural and contagious. Maybe that’s because it’s been with him for most of his life. When he was just 8 years old, Julian was the subject of an Academy Award nominated documentary film called Jules at Eight. Before he entered his teens, he had already performed with Carlos Santana and jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton. While still in highschool he was a faculty member of the Stanford Jazz

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01:00:01

225: Stacey Kent

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/06/28

Singer Stacey Kent says she tends to be attracted to the “feeling of unrest,” and she thinks that her fans like to feel it too. Over the course of a 30 year career that has produced over 20 albums (including including the Grammy-nominated Breakfast On The Morning Tram), Stacey has mined that feeling again and again in different ways. Maybe she understands how to express the complicated emotions around identity, romance, displacement and longing because she has lived them so fully herself. Raised

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01:20:19

Donald Fagen from 2019

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/06/21

Just when you think you know all there is to know about Donald Fagen, he surprises you. There are legendary stories, traded like playing cards in chat rooms, fanzines, and merch lines. Along with his musical partner, the late Walter Becker (who passed away in 2017), Fagen influenced countless musicians, producers and songwriters by setting the gold standard in record production and arrangement with his band Steely Dan. This is known. There are the solo records, including The Nightfly (released in

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01:19:15

224: Ryan Lerman

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/06/14

Ryan Lerman has a few tricks up his sleeve. Best known as the cofounder of Scary Pockets, a dynamic funk band from LA who came to prominence on YouTube, Ryan is also an accomplished singer songwriter, bassist, arranger and producer. His early work with Michael Bublé, John Legend, Vanessa Carlton and Ben Folds prepared him for a career as a session player, and his early solo records showcased his plain spoken, plaintive and soulful connection to the human condition. Lerman met his Scary Pockets

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01:14:27

Lionel Loueke (WBGO Studios Preview)

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/05/31

When Lionel Loueke was coming of age as a young guitar player in his home country of Benin in West Africa, there were no music stores of any kind. He would have had to travel to Nigeria, the next country over, just to get his hands on some new strings. So he made due with what he had, cleaning and soaking, reusing his strings and even going so far as to tie knots in them when they broke. Loueke’s story is the stuff of legend. After finally getting his hands on a guitar as a teenager, he put

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01:09:04

Eric Harland (WBGO Studios Preview)

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/05/24

We’re back with another classic episode from the archive in honor of the new partnership between this podcast and listener supported WBGO Studios. All month I’m revisiting some of my favorite episodes from over the years, and starting in June I’ll be back with all new fresh episodes. You can find these at www.wbgo.org/studios where you will also discover their ever expanding selection of hipster content. And if you want to dig on the full Third Story archive, you can find that at www.third-story.com

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01:04:26

223: Matthew Stevens

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/05/21

The fact that he grew up in Toronto is not necessarily crucial to understanding guitarist Matthew Stevens point of view. He’s regarded to be one of "most exciting up-and-coming jazz guitarists" in his generation, in any part of the world. His songs and guitar playing are featured on albums by the likes of Christian Scott, Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, Dave Douglas, Linda Oh, Harvey Mason. He has worked as a guitarist with producers Quincy Jones, Glen Ballard and Tony Visconti. As a

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01:07:40

Bob Power (WBGO Studios Preview)

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/05/17

What do A Tribe Called Quest, David Byrne, The Roots, D’Angelo, Pat Metheny, Erykah Badu, Jason Moran, Me’Shell N’degéocello, India.Arie, J Dilla, Run DMC, and Theo Croker have in common? They all benefited from the sound of Bob Power’s recording, mixing or production. Bob has had a profound effect on the sound of Hip Hop and modern music in general. Despite the fact that he says “I learned early on from working in television that if someone notices your work, you’re probably screwed,” I did

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01:18:58

Jason Moran (WBGO Studios Preview)

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/05/10

Jason Moran is so prolific and multifaceted that any attempt to summarize his career poses a daunting challenge. Now think about what it’s like preparing for a conversation with him. He’s a composer, conceptual artist, educator, and public intellectual with a critical disposition — critical in the sense of challenging the status quo, while still respecting the accomplishments of his mentors. First and foremost, he’s a piano player who straddles avant-garde jazz, the blues, classical music, stride

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01:23:19

222: Walter Smith III

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/05/07

From an early age, Walter Smith III began taking music very seriously. “My first gig was playing at a McDonalds in Houston with another saxophone player. I took a solo on “Blue Bossa.” It was terrible. People clapped, and I figured if I could get away with that and get applause, how could I fail?” Although it may appear Smith is a new voice on the scene, he is widely recognized as an adept performer, accomplished composer, and inspired educator. This spring, Smith welcomes his newest release, In

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01:17:22

Jon Batiste (WBGO Studios Preview)

The Third Story with Leo Sidran ·

2022/05/03

Before he reigned supreme at the Grammy Awards, before he was an Oscar-winning composer (for Pixar’s Soul), before he was bandleader for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and well before he’d become one of the rare jazz artists considered a household name, Jon Batiste was simply a rising star of the piano, making what he called “social music.” Batiste hails from Kenner, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans. He was born into a musical family, and thrust into the mix at an early age, singing and

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327 results

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