Articles by Leo Sidran

Radio & Podcasts

Nicole Zuraitis Baked Her Own Cake

by Leo Sidran
September 30, 2026

Nicole Zuraitis has spent much of her career being asked (and asking herself) variations of the same question: where do you fit? Is the music jazz? Is it pop? Is it cabaret?Her new album, The Devil I Knew, doesn't exactly settle the question. Instead, it makes the question seem increasingly beside the point.It's a sprawling, 20-song project produced by Larry Klein, with string arrangements by Vince Mendoza, horn charts by Jerry Hey, and musicians including Larry ...

Radio & Podcasts

Sullivan Fortner: The Music Tells You Where to Go

by Leo Sidran
September 16, 2026

It is hard to overstate the exuberance and awe expressed by other musicians when talking about Sullivan Fortner. At under 40 years old, he is one of a small handful of pianists who have moved the instrument and its potential forward. And by doing so, he's demonstrated that innovation can happen from within the tradition of what came before rather than reinventing it outright. To those who know, he is both a living reality and, as a jazz ...

Radio & Podcasts

Folk and Futurism with Sofia Rei

by Leo Sidran
September 9, 2026

Argentine singer, composer and producer Sofía Rei talks about leaving Buenos Aires and rediscovering the music of home, moving beyond the boundaries of jazz, embracing electronics and production, and learning from collaborators and students. Her new album, Antónima (GroundUP), brings those threads together through what she calls “Folk and Futurism" a meeting place for tradition, technology and a distinctly contemporary musical identity. ...

Radio & Podcasts

Ashley Kahn on the Miracles and Wonder of Paul Simon’s Graceland

by Leo Sidran
August 26, 2026

Forty years ago this month, Paul Simon released Graceland, an album that became one of the defining records of his career, and one of the most celebrated and debated albums of its era.The story famously begins with a cassette of South African township music that Simon couldn't stop listening to. He followed that sound to Johannesburg, where he began recording with local musicians, eventually building an album that also incorporated zydeco, Norteño music, gospel and the sounds of ...

Radio & Podcasts

Ben Sidran At 83: “Entropy Is Inevitable, But The Antidote Is Available”

by Leo Sidran
August 19, 2026

Last week my father, Ben Sidran, turned 83rd, and as I do every year, I talked to him for The Third Story podcast.These annual conversations have become a tradition, a way of tracking our relationship, and an artist, over time.Ben is a jazz musician, producer, writer and broadcaster. He was once described by the Chicago Sun-Times as “a Renaissance man cast adrift in the modern world." This year, I came across a 1974 DownBeat cover story ...

Catching Up With

Goldings, Bernstein & Stewart on 35 Years Together and Their New Album

by Leo Sidran
August 18, 2026

You can tell a lot about a band by the way they act offstage, how they talk to one another, and even more, how they listen. By the quality of their conversation. It's a useful measure when talking about Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein, and Bill Stewart, a trio whose history stretches back more than three decades, and whose music still depends on that same essential exchange. Logging onto a Zoom call with them, it's immediately clear ...

Radio & Podcasts

Julieta Venegas Has A Good Memory

by Leo Sidran
May 20, 2026

Julieta Venegas grew up in Tijuana, a city that sits at Mexico's northwestern edge and the United States' southwestern edge. Maybe it makes sense that someone raised in a city suspended between identities would resist fixed categories herself. Julieta Venegas has spent much of her career moving fluidly between musical worlds. Like Tijuana itself, Julieta seems most comfortable in the in-between. She was born in 1970 in Long Beach California, and raised in Tijuana. Her parents ...

Radio & Podcasts

Dida Pelled Wishes You Would...

by Leo Sidran
May 7, 2026

Dida Pelled became deeply immersed in jazz as a teenager in Tel Aviv, obsessing over guitarists like Grant Green and Wes Montgomery. But when she moved to New York nearly two decades ago, her artistic identity began to expand.In addition to establishing herself as a guitarist on the city's club scene, Pelled gradually stepped forward as a singer, songwriter, and bandleader, exploring a wider range of sounds and influences, from indie and Americana to straight-ahead jazz. She also ...

Radio & Podcasts

Keren Ann: We Are Artists Because Of The Process

by Leo Sidran
January 31, 2026

Keren Ann was born in Israel, spent her early years in the Netherlands, and later moved to France. The daughter of a Russian-Jewish father and a Dutch--Javanese mother, she grew up multilingual and deeply aware that identity, language, and place are always in motion. She began writing songs as a teenager and, by her mid-twenties, was already making her living as a professional songwriter--thanks in part to an unexpected collaboration with the legendary French singer Henri Salvador, for ...

Radio & Podcasts

Kurt Elling: Manifesting the Music

by Leo Sidran
January 12, 2026

Kurt Elling first appeared on The Third Story podcast in 2016--nearly ten years ago now. In some ways, it feels like a lifetime ago. Back then, he had moved from his native Chicago to New York and was living in Manhattan. The first Trump presidency, the pandemic, and the cascade of upheaval that would follow were not yet realities. Even then, Elling was already one of the most celebrated singers alive. This is what I wrote about him ...