Results for "Leo Sidran"

Ryan Lerman Of Scary Pockets On Trusting The Process And Viral Fame

by Leo Sidran
June 20, 2022

Ryan Lerman has a few tricks up his sleeve. Best known as the co-founder of Scary Pockets, a dynamic funk band from LA who came to prominence on YouTube, Ryan is also an accomplished singer songwriter, bassist, arranger and producer. Here he talks about his happy place ("in the middle of business thinking and artistry"), what ...

Matthew Stevens: on collaboration, production, gear and career

by Leo Sidran
May 23, 2022

Walter Smith III: Listen To The Young Players

by Leo Sidran
May 16, 2022

From an early age, Walter Smith III began taking music very seriously. “My first gig was playing at a McDonalds in Houston]} with another saxophonist. I took a solo on &#147;Blue Bossa." It was terrible. People clapped, and I figured if I could get away with that and get applause, how could I fail?" <br /><br ...

Lauren Henderson: From the Inside Out

by Leo Sidran
April 11, 2022

Vocalist Lauren Henderson is unusual in all the best ways. Described as “somewhere between a comforting whisper and a cogent declaration" by The New York Times, she sings with an intimate, sultry, haunting intensity. Her music might be mysterious, but she is an open book. Raised in Marblehead, Massachusetts (birthplace of the American Navy ...

Jake Sherman Gets Sexy

by Leo Sidran
March 28, 2022

Jake Sherman is everywhere at once and yet somehow maintains a certain air of mystery. There he is singing romantic '80s inspired jams. Here he comes making a jazz Hammond organ record at Dizzy's Club and jamming with Larry Goldings. Don't look now but he's hanging out in LA with his friends in Scary Pockets, or ...

Melissa Aldana: Sound, Time, Ideas

by Leo Sidran
March 14, 2022

Melissa Aldana is meeting her moment right now. At 33 years old, she's already a quarter of a century into a musical trip that started in Santiago, Chile. Her father and grandfather were both jazz saxophone players in Chile, and she started early, at six years old, on the alto sax. She and her father would ...

Amir ElSaffar: In search of ecstasy

by Leo Sidran
February 14, 2022

Amir ElSaffar has spent much of his life in search of the ecstatic moments that help connect to something bigger. In his case, he does this through his relationship with music and culture. Trying to define or even explain what he does is not so simple, even for him. He leads five ensembles and ...

Baby Talk

by H William Stine
February 4, 2022

Taking baby steps—isn't that what I was doing in my driveway after the last snow storm? Out of the mouths of babes—isn't that why we put bibs on them? Sleep like a baby—I'm sure my audience can relate to that. Throw the baby out with the bath water—doesn't that just mean it's time to get your eyes examined? ...

Adam O'Farrill: Removing the external

by Leo Sidran
January 31, 2022

Trumpet player / composer / bandleader Adam O'Farrill on belonging to a rich musical legacy (he is the grandson of Chico O'Farrill and son of Arturo O'Farrill), how video games, literature and most of all the films of Paul Thomas Anderson and scored of Ryuichi Sakamoto have informed his work, what he learned from working with ...

Benny Benack III: Presentation matters

by Leo Sidran
January 17, 2022

Benny Benack III didn't necessarily start out thinking he would be a hipster crooner. He spent his 10,000 hours dealing with the trumpet, and he's still dealing with it. He tells me that he brings it with him everywhere--even on dates. He says, “Freddie Hubbard, Clifford Brown, Roy Hargrove, and Clark Terry were my early idols ...