The Third Story with Leo Sidran

Whenever my dad and I get together to talk, there is no predicting where the conversation will lead. It always has a way of making some kind of sense, and tying together the strands of our diverse interests, from jazz to sociology, popular culture to politics. Just as we did on the morning of the presidential election in 2016, here we discuss the results of the 2020 election and what it might say about all of the above. Somehow, along the way we touch on his thoughts on the beauty of old things, Tikun Olam (the Jewish concept of healing the world) as a response to a universal call from deep in the frontal cortex, “The cruelty of our own DNA”, Chaos theory, the future of small jazz clubs, and how “we are all survivors of chaos”.  Then we try to figure out what that has to do with Les McCann’s recording of the song “Maxie’s Changes” (with the largely unknown tenor saxophone player Frank Haynes). www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.bensidran.com

There is a video you can find on YouTube of Cory Henry at age four, playing Hammond organ in church, wearing a suit and tie. It’s very clear in the video that he was made to play music. So it should come as no surprise that over the last decade, Cory has become one of the most celebrated, influential, exciting keyboard players of his generation.  Cory was already building a name for himself in both the New York gospel and R&B communities before he joined the band Snarky Puppy, but by the time he left the band in 2015 to form his solo project The Funk Apostles, he had become a kind of phenomenon. During his time with Snarky Puppy he played on the Grammy winning song “Something” featuring Lalah Hathaway. In recent years Cory has stretched out as a bandleader, songwriter and singer too. His new record Something To Say finds Cory writing and singing about “bigger things”. He says, “This is my opportunity to say what I want to say. Because my music is supposed to be in this time...I’ll get back to the party records later. Right now it’s important to be in the moment, in the time. I want when you hear the record to think ‘this is what’s happening now!’” We got together on Zoom recently to talk about his early development playing music in church, learning to make music on Saturday night and on Sunday morning, how losing his parents at a young age affected his life and career, his experiences playing with saxophonist Kenny Garrett (Cory toured with Garrett at age 18), Snarky Puppy, and The Funk Apostles. Along the way he gives a master class on some of his favorite Gospel music, and an introspective explanation of much of the material on his new record. www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast https://coryhenry.com/

Brian Krock is... ...a saxophone player. A self described “woodwind doubler” he has devoted much of his career to playing multiple wind instruments credibly. ...a bandleader and composer. His big band, Big Heart Machine is one of the most innovative and exciting large ensembles today, and his smaller band Liddle pushes the boundaries between composed and improvised music in new directions. ...a YouTuber. His Scorestudy video series unpacks the mechanisms and underlying processes informing his favorite composers, and explores ideas about composition, process, nature, technique, and history. ...a thoughtful guy. Here we consider the role of critical analysis in music, the “unintended consequences of the capitalist nature of music education,” what it means to improvise like a composer, how reading James Joyce influenced his relationship to listening to and writing music and led him to “create artwork that invites people to put forth some effort,” why he loves “to be actively involved in things that you're a beginner at,” his concerns about his “own memory and the world’s ability to focus,” and what happened to him after playing over 1000 performances of Dirty Dancing The Musical. www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.briankrock.com

Alec Hanley Bemis, writer and manager of cultural projects, co-founded the Brassland record label in 2001 along with his friends Aaron and Bryce Dessner of the band The National. Over the years, the label has become home to a community of like minded creative musicians who defy category. Last month Alec published a piece in Creative Independent called 19 things I’d tell people contemplating starting a record label (after running one for 19 years). Here we discuss what happened in between.  Although this conversation was recorded in the before times of 2019, listening back I am struck by a few particularly interesting ideas that emerge in the talk: the distinction between culture and subculture; that we are now in an era of “constant content”; the shift over time from the taste maker as an institution to the taste maker as an individual personality; and what he describes as “the economy of cool”. www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.brassland.org

In the late 1970s Jeff Cesario was positioned to be one of the most in demand wedding band conga players in Wisconsin and some parts of Minnesota too. So why did he trade all that in and move to LA to pursue a career in comedy? Here, he tells that story.  Since then, Jeff has been an actor, comedian, producer and writer, who has written and produced for Dennis Miller Live and The Larry Sanders Show. He has appeared on Adam Carolla, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Comedy Central Presents among other shows. Cesario was a part of two Emmy wins with Dennis Miller Live. He’s a real comedy success story, in his longevity and in his ease both behind the camera and in front of it. Jeff’s new standup album, What Was I Thinking, is out now and available in all the places you find albums. And his podcast Play With Pain with Chet Waterhouse is also available in all the podcast places. We spoke recently about the “power of insulation” (working out your craft inside of a small scene), how he approaches his standup act like a big band chart, the double edged sword of having a lot of experience today, the intense value of commitment, and how his life in music helped prepare him for comedy.  www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.third-story.com https://www.jeffcesario.com/

Trumpeter Philip Dizack was once named by Downbeat Magazine as “[one of twenty-five] Trumpet Players for the Future”. That’s not to say that he isn’t for the present and with a deep respect for the tradition as well.  After nearly 20 years in New York, playing with a long list of notable musicians ranging from mentors like Brian Lynch, Eddie Palmieri, and Bobby Watson to members of his own cohort including Ben Wendel, Shai Maestro and Sullivan Fortner among many others, Philip moved to Denton, TX in 2019 to join the faculty at University of North Texas. Earlier this year, we got on the phone to catch up, and that’s what this episode really is: Something between a more structured career retrospective interview and a temperature check in the time of Covid, a conversation about what and how he thinks about playing, teaching (“preparing for my teaching is the most helpful thing that I’ve ever done for myself”), practicing (“the more specific your questions are, the more specific your answers will become”), potential (“I know I’m developing a lot but I hear so far beyond what I’m capable of doing right now”), and perspective (“if our perspective is right then we’re always in complete humility”).  Despite the informal nature of the episode, it's incredibly enjoyable and poignant. Don't forget to leave a review and subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.philipdizack.com/

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 hard drives. But anyway, she decided that her original concept was too intellectual and that it was time to make something more intuitive. Encouraged by her musical (and personal) partner Ori Rousso, she wanted to make something that wasn’t so uncool.  So she began producing tracks that straddle hip hop, pop. electronic, inspired by Bjork, Kendrick Lamar and Flying Lotus. Her first record, Off The Radar, came out in 2017 and included the song “Dance While You Shoot” that was featured in an Apple Music commercial. She toured in the states and Europe, and was positioned for a big year in 2020 as she prepared to release her new record. The more organic live versions of the songs were meant as a kind of creative exercise, but I really loved them, and as Noga explains it, so did a lot of her fans. If you haven’t seen the video “VIEWS (Feat. Rousso) - [Live] Kids Against The Machine Vol. 1” by Noga Erez, it’s something you should absolutely do as soon as possible.  Noga’s latest single, “You So Done” came out last week. We talked a few days before it was released about her career, starting as a jazz singer-songwriter and then transitioning to what she describes as “the music in my heart”, but also the curious relationship between Israel and the United States from the point of view of a contemporary Israeli pop act, what it means to be a political artist, whether or not music itself can really make a difference politically today, what it means to be “the offspring of limitation” and if the phrase “I don’t pop with that” actually exists or not. Also, an extensive tutorial on how to pronounce her name. www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.nogaerez.com

For the second year in a row, I talk to my dad, musician/producer/journalist/philosopher Ben Sidran in honor of his birthday. This time he’s turning 77, and we consider his recent projects, including the books The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma and There Was A Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream, and his latest single “Who’s The Old Guy Now”.  Of course these are atypical times, and so this is an atypical episode, in which we discuss being alive on the planet in Covidtimes, watching livestream jazz, getting older, the difference between Troubadours, Shamans and Griots, going “underground”, why jazz is sometimes called “the sound of surprise”, whether or not the idea of “popular music” will endure into the 21st century, how a bill becomes a law, Miles Davis’ posture, and just what exactly “hay foot, straw foot” means. www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.bensidran.com

Eric Krasno is in a lot more places than one might realize. Known for his work with the bands Soulive and Lettuce, he also works with all kinds of groups as a player - including the Tedeschi Trucks Band, Phil Lesh and Friends, Oteil Burbridge and Friends...it’s a lot of friends. Maybe that’s because he has one foot in the jam band world: the universe of extended grooves, risky riffing and close contact with a community of fans.  What surprised me about Eric is how much stuff he actually does - he’s part frontman, limelight guy, and part behind the scenes guy. For example, he also has another foot in the world of songwriting and production, and particularly in that space where soul and hip hop meet. He has produced and written songs for Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, Talib Kweli, Nigel Hall, The London Souls, Marcus King, 50 Cent, and Lawrence.  He also makes records as a solo artist. His most recent release Telescope came out last year, accompanied by a series of animated videos that hold together as a global narrative about the lives of a group of people who live in the same building in New York.  Telescope would also turn out to be a kind of farewell love letter to New York, where Krasno was based and where he made so much of his statement for over 20 years. In late 2019 he moved to LA, settled down, and started his next act. Although he planned to focus on production, he still had over 100 gigs scheduled this year. Then the hammer of history fell, and he found himself locked down in LA.  In Covidtimes, he’s been doing his own podcast called Eric Krasno Plus One.  We zoomed in recently to talk about what he’s doing during these strange and trying times, his experience as a podcaster, producer, and provider of deep and soulful grooves. Along the way we talked about the development of Soulive, Lettuce, Velour Recordings, the values and expectations of jam and jam band audiences, “the boom bap with interesting chord changes”, learning how to do less and better, and how many times one man can say the word “nugget” in an hourlong interview.

Drummer Jochen Rueckert has some things to get off his chest.  Born and raised outside of Cologne, Germany, Rueckert started coming to New York as soon as he possibly could. By the time he was in his early 20s, he was already well into paying his dues. He can be heard on over 120 albums and worked or recorded with musicians and bands such as the Marc Copland Trio, the Kurt Rosenwinkel new quartet, the Mark Turner Band, the Melissa Aldana trio, the Sam Yahel trio, John Abercrombie, Pat Metheny (he tells that story here), Matt Penman, Kenny Werner, Bill McHenry, Seamus Blake, Guillermo Klein and Los Guachos as well as Madeleine Peyroux. He also leads his own band, programs and releases electronic music under the moniker Wolff Parkinson White, and has written a series of ebooks chronicling every hotel room he's stayed at with a self-timer photograph and short stories about some of the more annoying aspects of life as a touring musician, called Read The Rueckert. In this extensive and wide ranging conversation Rueckert meditates on his early years in Germany, why playing with great bass players is like eating great pasta, refusing to share hotel rooms, why he is a reluctant teacher, making electronic music, the rare innate heart condition he suffers from, how to groove with organ players, organizing tours, why one should never play with pop musicians, what it was like to play one gig with Pat Metheny, what he’s thinking about when he performs, drummer Bill Stewart’s time feel and volume level, Artificial Intelligence, the years he spent at Nublu in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and much, much more. www.third-story.com www.leosidran.com www.jochenrueckert.net/