Articles by Leo Sidran
Shabaka: This Is The Moment To Make Patient Music
by Leo Sidran
Shabaka Hutchings grew up between the UK and Barbados. He started playing clarinet as a young boy in Barbados and eventually moved back to England to go to music school in the early 2000s.After college he began a period of working furiously on a kaleidoscopic range of projects and became an icon of the new sound of London jazz, which integrated African rhythms and modes, Caribbean and Middle eastern sounds and was largely danceable.Shabaka himself has ...
read moreJose James Makes Music For 'Party And Politics'
by Leo Sidran
Singer Jose James has been a consistent and insistent musical presence ever since he released his first album, The Dreamer in 2008 on British dj Gilles Peterson's newly formed Brownswood Recordings label. Since then he's made a dozen albums, recorded for iconic record labels like Impulse! and Blue Note, and eventually formed his own label Rainbow Blonde with his partner (in business and in life) Taali. The richness and depth in his baritone voice is reminiscent of classic ...
read moreCelebrating The Third Story at 10 with Will Lee and Amanda Sidran
by Leo Sidran
Ten years ago, on a bit of a whim, I invited bassist Will Lee to come over to my home studio in Brooklyn to do an interview with me for a new project I was starting: a podcast. A year or two earlier, my friend had turned me on to Marc Maron's WTF podcast, and I was totally hooked on the concept of casual long form interviews among peers. At the time Maron spoke almost exclusively to comics, and I ...
read moreKeyon Harrold: Having The Courage To Be Who You Are
by Leo Sidran
Trumpeter/composer Keyon Harrold was born and raised in Ferguson, MO to a musical family. He is the son of pastors and one of 16 children. As a boy, a trumpet was placed in his hands, and the rest is history. He moved to New York to study at The New School in the 1990s and became part of a legendary generation of musicians associated with the neosoul movement, including Common, Bilal, Roy Hargrove, The Roots, and Robert Glasper. ...
read moreLarry Goldings & John Sneider: Chinwag
by Leo Sidran
A 30 year long friendship between musicians is not necessary to make intimate, creative music together, but it certainly doesn't hurt. Chinwag, the first duo record by pianist Larry Goldings and trumpeter John Sneider, is just such a project; a debut three decades in the making. It might seem like a simple undertaking--a small format album of piano and trumpet--but under the hood there is a lot more going on than meets the eyes (or ears). Chinwag, which ...
read moreAni DiFranco: I Love People Who Are Brave In Showing Themselves
by Leo Sidran
Ani DiFranco began recording and self-releasing her music as a 20 year old in Buffalo, New York in 1990. 34 years later she is widely considered to be a feminist icon. But in many ways she emerged iconic, fully formed and fearless. A facile lyricist with a biting honesty, she played guitar with a virtuosic, rhythmic style. And she was ahead of her time as an independent artist who owned all her own masters and controlled most of ...
read morePete Min's Colorfield Records And Sculpted Chaos
by Leo Sidran
Pete Min is a recording engineer, producer and label owner based in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles. His label Colorfield Records features artful collaborative explorations with musicians in unlikely configurations. Pete's studio Lucy's Meat Market has become one of the most in demand spots for recording among a subset of musical artists with LA ties ranging from Ben Wendel and Larry Goldings to Andrew Bird and Feist. Min started Colorfield Records to pursue a less traditional approach ...
read moreJoey Alexander: I Just Happened To Start Early
by Leo Sidran
When Joey Alexander made his first appearance in the States nearly a decade ago, it seemed to send a kind of shockwave through the jazz world. He was 10 years old when Wynton Marsalis invited him to travel from his native Indonesia (he was born in Bali but moved to Jakarta to pursue his music) to New York to perform at the Jazz at Lincoln Center Gala. He played a solo arrangement of “Round Midnight." It was incredible.
read moreTodd Sickafoose: Things Take A Long Time
by Leo Sidran
Bassist and composer Todd Sickafoose shows up in a lot of places: on stage with singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco, drummer Allison Miller or violinist Jenny Scheinman, behind the scenes as a record producer for artists like Noe Venable and Anais Mitchell, orchestrating the music for the Broadway musical Hadestown (which earned him both a Grammy for record production and a Tony for orchestration), and as a bandleader. His new record Bear Proof is his first album of original music ...
read moreGregory Hutchinson: It’s All About Feel
by Leo Sidran
Gregory Hutchinson--or “Hutch" as he is known--is one of the most highly regarded and highly recorded jazz drummers on the planet. Part of what makes him so special is that he sits at the crossroads of the old school and the new school. He was mentored by old jazz masters like Red Rodney, Ray Brown and Betty Carter. He worked extensively with Joshua Redman and Roy Hargrove, among many other innovative jazz musicians of his generation.He has also ...
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