The Third Story with Leo Sidran

Author Peter Straub started out with dreams of writing poetry and literary fiction. After publishing his first two novels and two books of poetry, he asked himself the question that so many artists find themselves asking: how do I make a living at this? An agent suggested he try writing a "gothic novel", advice that reoriented him for much of the rest of his career. His natural ability to write novels that as he says, would be appealing to people who love Philip Roth and those who love Stephen King, connected with a huge audience that picked up what he was putting down over the course of many years. But before he became a writer in earnest, he was a jazz lover. He discovered jazz as a boy growing up in Milwaukee in the late 1950s. He gravitated toward Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond, Clifford Brown, Bill Evans and Miles. While the swinging sounds of his favorite soloists followed him from stage to stage and page to page, there was something else that stayed with him as well: the darker moments of his childhood. A car accident that shaped his first years in school and left him alone and isolated in a body cast and a wheelchair, just as he was learning to read. He recovered, but it turned out to be a kind of catalyst for his career as a writer. And there was an even darker secret that he somehow managed to hide from even himself well into adulthood. In our conversation we explore all of this. The through line of jazz and fiction, improvisation and writing, how the past stays with us into the present, and how watching his Norwegian farmer relatives taught him how to write diligently. www.third-story.com

Trombonist, composer and educator Ryan Keberle has been active on the New York scene for nearly 20 years - which is really saying something considering he's still a young man by many standards. He's worked extensively with both the Maria Schneider orchestra and indie singer songwriter Sufjan Stevens, each of whom have influenced his own music enormously. Along the way, he's worked as a sideman with the likes of Wynton Marsalis, Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, and Alicia Keys, Ivan Lins and played in the house band on Saturday Night Live. Ryan's project, a pianoless ensemble called Catharsis, started in 2004. The group has a new record coming out later this spring called "Find the Common, Shine a Light" which Ryan refers to as a "Response to Growing Political and Social Turmoil, An Urgent Call for Change". Here we talk about the legacy of trombone players and arrangers and how the instrument is undergoing a revolution today, what being a side man taught him about listening, and why all improvised music is a form of protest. www.third-story.com

David Garibaldi is one of the funkiest, most influential drummers of his generation. Those who know, know. They know about his incredible feel, technique, books and instructional videos, interest in afro Caribbean music, and those iconic beats with Tower of Power, the group he joined for the first time nearly 50 years ago. Those who have had the pleasure to meet him all talk about his positivity, his generosity, his curiosity, and his energy. The moment you meet him, it's clear that he's a cultivated person, in the sense that he's precise, orderly, focussed, almost military in his presentation. But he's also what musicians might call a good hang. He loves to swap stories, talk about his experience, and laugh. Those who know, also know that earlier this year while walking to a gig on his home turf, at Yoshi's in Oakland, California, David and another musician named Marc van Wageningen were actually hit by a train. It was slow moving, but no matter how you look at it, the two of them were hit by a train, and both men survived it. Here he explains why Oakland is the funky side of the Bay, the work ethic of Tower of Power, the Garibaldi family recipe for happiness and longevity, and why the book is still being written when it comes to his legacy.

Pianist, drummer, trumpeter, educator, blogger, George Colligan stopped by recently when he was visiting Brooklyn. After living in New York for 15 years, he relocated to Portland, Oregon for a teaching position in 2011. He touched on his long career as a sideman, his ideas about "creativity versus tradition", jazz education, how standup comedy and jazz are similar, how playing changes and changing diapers are different, how 911 changed the scene in New York, kids these days, playing with Jack DeJohnette, why chops aren't all that matter, and what flying business class does to improve performance. www.third-story.com

Drummer turned entrepreneur Ryan Gruss on building one of the most creative drum production libraries around (Loop Loft), developing the "Blue Note of drum loops" and the unusual journey to took to get there.

Recording and mix engineer Ryan Hewitt starting paying his dues in the business before he could even cash a check. He grew up surrounded by recording, assisting his father Dave Hewitt on mobile recordings, and eventually entering the business in earnest after college. He worked his way up in the old school way, assisting the best engineers of the day and working in the classic studios of New York. His journey eventually led him to LA and then to Nashville, where we met to talk about his career, coming up in the tradition, forging new paths, working with new technology, developing his own sound, the value of producers, and when to take a steak of the grill. Along the way we discuss working with Blink 182, Harry Connick Jr., Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Lumineers, The Avett Brothers, Rick Rubin, John Frusciante, Brad Mehldau, and many more. www.third-story.com

Ben and Leo Sidran remember record producer Tommy LiPuma and play some previously unheard interviews with him. These particular stories talk about a time in his life that hasn't been talked about too much - his childhood in Cleveland, how the radio was his best friend, and how music saved his life, and how being a barber got him to LA. www.third-story.com

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

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

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