The Third Story with Leo Sidran

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 gypsy jazz guitar player Django Reinhardt retired, and hosts an annual jazz festival in his honor. Musicians and fans alike descend on the town for the festival, and because of the ties to Django, some of them are Gypsies (Manouche in French). Riding her bike through town one summer day, Cyrille had a chance encounter with some young Gypsy kids that would lead to a friendship that ultimately changed her life. The Manouche taught her to sing, taught her to perform, taught her to improvise and see improvisation as not only a musical pursuit but also a kind of life goal. To watch Cyrille perform is to watch a kind of ecstatic manifestation. She's very physically engaged, her whole body gets involved when she sings. She says that music was originally an extension of dance for her and that since her instrument is her body, dance is still a vital part of her singing. That physicality is part of her charm. She's a natural performer. But she's also an accomplished singer, dance or no dance. She is naturally in tune with the language of jazz, bebop, funk, and soul. She's a precise and fluent scat singer, technical and soulful at the same time. Cyrille won awards and accolades along the way - she won the Montreux Jazz Festival Competition in 2007,was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 2010, and she won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Competition in 2012. Her 2019 album Move On featured cover versions of songs by Stephen Sondheim. The album was praised by Sondheim himself and one of its songs, "Marry Me a Little", was nominated for a Grammy Award. And a live stream video of Cyrille on Emmet Cohen's YouTube channel has racked up millions of views. Aimée released two albums in 2021, Petit Fleur recorded with Adonis Rose and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, and I'll Be Seeing You, a collection of duets with her long time friend the guitarist Michael Valeanu. When she's not on the road, Cyrille has been living between New Orleans and Costa Rica. We spoke about growing up in Samois-sur-Seine, what she learned from the Gypsies, moving to America, how to learn new languages, the importance of confronting and overcoming fear for creativity, how to be honest with the audience, and where to find good cheese.

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" and showed us "The Blues and the Abstract Truth." He produced both hits and critically acclaimed albums, and his sound defined an era. He made the history (for us to study), set the bar (for us to dance on), and paved the road (that many are still on). Needless to say, it was an honor to talk to him! We met at his apartment on the upper east side of Manhattan in the summer of 2015 and talked about some of his most memorable experiences. www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.wbgo.org/studios

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 playing drums at age 2. By the time he started high school he was a credible drummer, bassist, guitarist, trombone and tuba player. He found his way deeper and deeper into music despite the fact that, as he says, he was "raised in a bubble". Louis didn't hear secular music until he was almost 18 years old, but the music he learned in church, and the music he played in the church with his mother gave him a deep foundation for a career in music. When he did eventually hear the music and the musicians that would inform his professional journey, he quickly understood that he had a place in that world. Soon he was playing with the likes of Marcus Miller, John Scofield, Q-Tip, Snarky Puppy, Jon Batiste, and Bobby McFerrin among others. He joined the Late Show band when Colbert took over the job as host, back in 2015 and has been a regular on the show ever since. In this interview, done in 2018, Cato talked about the difference between making music in church and playing secular music, what it means to "learn what you already know" and how surviving a terrible tour-bus accident changed his outlook on life and music. www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.wbgo.org/studios

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 www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.wbgo.org/studios www.bensidran.com

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 drawn to nature. "I learn a lot by being around things humans couldn't create," he says. "Like trees and mountains. I just don't think humans are that clever or that important." Despite his love of the natural world, John is an innovative electronic (or at least electric) musician. He twists and squeezes the sound of his keyboards — distorting, filtering and processing the instruments to find unusual and sometimes otherworldly textures. Maybe that's why he lists NASA's recording of a black hole at the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster as one of his favorite recent musical discoveries. Medeski is a highly collaborative musician: in addition to MMW, he has been a part of numerous musical collectives including The Word, Mad Skillet, Hudson, Saint Disruption, and multiple John Zorn projects. We spoke recently about the healing power of music; what attracted him to music as a boy; his creative and professional development; and the moment in 1996 when MMW discovered their jam band audience. www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.wbgo.org/studios

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 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 featured the song "Dance While You Shoot" that was featured in an Apple commercial. The more organic live versions of the songs were meant as a kind of creative exercise during 2020 when touring came to a halt, but I really loved them, and as Noga explains it, so did a lot of her fans. We talked in the summer of 2020 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.wbgo.org/studios

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 Cyrille Aimée has over 4 million views on Youtube. Since then, Emmet's Place has become a kind of jazz incubator in New York; featured guests have included legends like Houston Person, Victor Lewis, Joe Lovano, Sheila Jordan, Randy Brecker, Regina Carter, Christian McBride, Nicholas Payton, and dozens more. Cohen has one foot planted in the future and the other in the past. Maybe that's why he chose to call his most recent record Future Stride: as a nod to the stride piano that he loves and the modern world in which he lives. That tension between these two impulses, the old school and the new, is at the heart of the Emmet Cohen phenomenon. He's deeply rooted in the jazz tradition, and believes in the importance of oral history and intergenerational connection. When he was in his 20s (not so long ago!) he made a series of albums, live interviews, and performances featuring jazz masters Jimmy Cobb, Ron Carter, Benny Golson, Albert "Tootie" Heath, and George Coleman. He called it the Master Legacy Series. Meanwhile, he's an active digital citizen. He was quick to embrace streaming, NFTs, and direct-to-fan connection. (He offers a subscription service to his fans to support his work directly.) He's a product of the 21st century and he understands how to thrive in both physical and virtual space. We got together recently to talk about how he straddles the line between tradition and modernity, starting out as a prodigy in Miami, being a "repertory player," his community in Harlem, "blues therapy" and the common lesson he learned from all his mentors. The Third Story is made in partnership with WBGO Studios. www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.wbgo.org/studios

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 reality if you ignore the borders, the base of most jazz adjacent music is in Europe… You get to do a lot of hanging." I spent a day at Umbria, hanging and exploring. Conversations with Matt Pierson, artistic consultant Enzo Capua, drummer Terence Higgens, saxophonist Dave Koz, and singer Kurt Elling help to illuminate the situation. www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.wbgo.org/studios

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 JOURNALISTE written on it and an assignment to "find the story." Pretty quickly, a narrative started to reveal itself. Or rather, several narratives, all classics. The story of the young versus the old. The story about the past versus the present. And ultimately, the story of today's community of musicians, what's on their mind as they travel this Silk Road of Rhythm which is the summer jazz festival circuit —from Montreal to Marciac, from North Sea to Umbria and beyond. Conversations with Dee Dee Bridgewater, Bill Charlap, Scott Colley, Aaron Goldberg, Samara Joy, Allison Miller, Gregory Porter, and various concert-goers, festival organizers and locals all helped to fill in the story. Self-expression, politics, social media, technology, and conservationism were all part of the fabric, but the common thread between all of them was one of empathy and communion. "This Music," as so many of the musicians call it, represents human potential. And humans are complicated beings. But at our core, we are social beings and that is reflected in this Montreal Jazz Festival experience. www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.wbgo.org/studios

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 Workshop. Lage plays like someone in love. Despite his productive personal relationship with singer-songwriter Margret Glaspy - who produced his forthcoming album on Blue Note View with a Room - perhaps the deepest love affair of his life may in fact be with the guitar itself. In this conversation from last year, we talked about his 2021 release Squint, which Glaspy produced with Armand Hirsch - his first on Blue Note, which he recorded with drummer Dave King and bassist Jorge Roeder. He told me how he traversed those murky waters of youthful exceptionalism and came out on the other side - with more sensitivity, to the music, to his audience, and to himself. During the course of the conversation, Julian also described the connection between the artist and the audience and how he thinks about notes as having the weight of speech. "I want it to feel like I'm talking to you when I play." The Third Story is a collaboration with WBGO Studios. www.wbgo.org/studios