The Third Story with Leo Sidran

Latest Episodes:

68: What is music therapy? Mar 02, 2017

Show notes

What is music therapy? How is it different from traditional talk therapy? Why is music so useful in accessing parts of the brain that we can't get to in other ways? Is all music really a form of therapy? How important is it for creative arts therapists to confront their own relationship with the arts? What is the role of money in the client-therapist relationship? Why are we staying up late on a school night to talk about this? Dr. Brian T Harris Creative Arts Therapist, PHD, MT-BC, LCAT and Mechelle Chestnut, MA, MT-BC, LCAT discuss. www.third-story.com

67: Alexis Cuadrado (bassist, composer, educator) Feb 16, 2017

Show notes

Alexis Cuadrado is on a quest for the ecstatic truth. It either started in Spain when he was a young boy, or it started 20,000 years ago, depending on how you look at it.

The product of 1980s, post-Franco Spain, Alexis was drawn to a life in music despite his parents' desire for him to do anything he wanted to do "that was normal and not music". He paid his early dues as a bass player in the early 1990s Barcelona scene where American musicians mingled regularly with Spanish players, and a new form of modern folk music was developing called Nuevo Flamenco.

Eventually he felt the siren song of city and crossed over. He moved to New York nearly two decades ago and got to work. It was only after having logged nearly a dozen years in America that Alexis started thinking about the music he left behind. Through a process he refers to as "decoding and recoding" Flamenco, he sought to integrate the folk music of Spain and the jazz, chamber music, and world elements that he had been exploring.

www.third-story.com

66: Adam Schatz (musician, presenter) Feb 09, 2017

Show notes

For a such busy guy, Adam Schatz manages to watch more television than you might imagine. At least, that's what he says. Known to some as a music presenter, co-producer of the Winter Jazz Festival in New York (held every January in downtown Manhattan), saxophone player in an array of local bands ranging from free improvised ensembles to Afro Beat and dance music, and leader of the band Landlady. Apparently he also takes pictures.

We met recently just as he was setting off on a cross country tour with Landlady. Their most recent album had come out just as Winter Jazz Fest wrapped up, so he was in the zone and ready to talk about his thoughts on the scene in New York, his process for writing and producing music, and why it's important to make your grandparents laugh. Along the way he explained to me why I need to leave my house more often.

www.third-story.com

65: Duchess Trio Feb 02, 2017

Show notes

Duchess is a three part close harmony vocal group comprised of Amy Cervini, Hilary Gardner and Melissa Stylianou. All three are accomplished jazz singers in their own right, who came together for a one off gig at the 55 Bar in New York's West Village several years ago, and realized that there was something there worth exploring.

"Three fine singers...join together in swinging harmony to whip up music that traffics in delight…this fresh-voiced triumvirate plays it straight from the heart, leaving any trace of camp or post-modern irony at the door." — The New Yorker

This conversation explores how each singer's individual background, how they came to form Duchess, and how they all think about career and craft.

www.third-story.com

64: Benji Rogers Jan 26, 2017

Show notes

Benji Rogers was an ex sound-man, bartender, and broke 34 year old musician who was sleeping on an air mattress in his mother's spare room, when he had a vision. Eight years later, he's one of the most innovative, outspoken leaders in the music business.

As he tells it, he has led a "very full life" and he always had an extremely active mind. That's very clear in this conversation. In 2009 Benji launched Pledge Music, a website that connects artists to fans. What started as a small startup with a few ambitious and curious partners living on different sides of the Atlantic has become a major leader in crowd funding for music. 3,000,000 fans and over 50,000 artists have contributed to Pledge Music campaigns.

In recent years, the list of notable artists has swelled and many chart topping projects have been launched through Pledge.

Benji subsequently launched other businesses. His latest project is Dot Blockchain music.

How did Benji make this incredible transition into the world of music business technology, how does he think about his role in the business, and what lessons did he bring with him from his musical life into the world of startups? Also, what is EBITDA?

www.third-story.com

63: Ben Wendel Jan 19, 2017

Show notes

Saxophonist Ben Wendel grew up in a loud household and he had to fight to be heard. Maybe that's why it's so important to him to be heard clearly.

Born in Vancouver and raised in Los Angeles, by the time he left the west coast to attend Eastman School of Music, he had already been informed by a community of players and mentors, along with his cohorts in the Leimert Park scene. He carried the openness of that atmosphere with him to Eastman, then back to Los Angeles, and eventually to New York.

In college he connected with a group of like musicians and they formed Kneebody, a band that proudly defies category, but that lives in what Wendel refers to as "jazz adjacent" territory.

Ben works regularly as both a sideman and a leader. His 2015 video series "The Seasons" featured 12 original duets dedicated to (and featuring) 12 different musicians and released over the course of 12 months.

How does working in a visual medium change the way he thinks about making music? What's happening in LA? What was it like to work with Snoop Dogg? Is it important to swing? How do you learn style and sound? Can it be taught?

www.third-story.com

62: Michael Dorf Jan 13, 2017

Show notes

When Michael Dorf was a teenager in Milwaukee, he told his parents he was going to Madison for the weekend to visit a camp counselor. Instead he snuck off to New York for a lost weekend with a long distance girlfriend. Although it was 35 years ago, he can recall every detail of the city he discovered on that trip and the music scene at the time.

Little did he know, he would soon become one of the most influential live music producers in New York, He opened the famed Knitting Factory which provided a home for the Downtown Scene in the 1990s, started a record label and production company, reshaped the way Jewish music is presented in the city, created a series annual tribute concerts at Carnegie Hall, and opened City Winery, a chain of restaurants with live music and wine.

How did this happen? To what extent did he mean for it to happen? How has New York changed around him, and how has he changed around the city?

Here Michael takes us through his journey, over a drink at the City Winery.

www.third-story.com

www.picturehimhappy.com

Episode 61: Spike Wilner Jan 05, 2017

Show notes

Pianist Spike Wilner belongs to the tradition of jazz musicians who also own and operate clubs. In his case it came by accident, or rather, a series of accidents.

Spike owns and operates Smalls and Mezzrow, two of the most vibrant, hip and important clubs on the jazz scene. Along with his partner Mitch Borden, Spike has cultivated and curated a community of musicians and fans whose influence reaches around the world. In 2007 they began live streaming concerts from Smalls, and since then they have built an archive of over 12,000 concerts (35 more are added each week) featuring 2000 musicians.

How does Spike book the club? How does one go about getting a gig at one of the most prestigious clubs in the world? How does success change the dynamic of the club? How does thinking of himself as an archivist affect his job? What is the future of the live jazz business? How does he balance a life of playing music with a life of managing it?

As Spike says, "The scene is alive. It's like electricity. It's out there. You just have to know how to capture it."

60: The election (Ben and Leo Sidran) Nov 10, 2016

Show notes

I woke up on the road in Paris the morning after the American Presidential election and saw the results. Then my father and I had this brief conversation.

Nearly one year to the day after we lived through a terror attack in Paris, we found ourselves back in the same place. Only this time it was not our personal safety that had been placed at risk. It was something that felt somehow much larger. Last year we recorded a podcast conversation describing what it felt like in Paris on the night of November 13th.

At the heart of the conversation this time are the questions: is it immoral under certain conditions to choose to be happy? What is our responsibility as musicians in the face of serious adversity? What do we say to ourselves, the people we love, and the world around us now??

59: Kurt Elling Nov 06, 2016

Show notes

Singer Kurt Elling has been one of the most influential, respected and popular jazz singers on the scene for 2 decades. As the New York Times puts it, "Elling is the standout male vocalist of our time." The Washington Post agrees: "Since the mid-1990s, no singer in jazz has been as daring, dynamic or interesting as Kurt Elling. With his soaring vocal flights, his edgy lyrics and sense of being on a musical mission, he has come to embody the creative spirit in jazz."

Here he talks about his process, what motivates him, what Chicago offered him and why he moved to New York.

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