The Third Story Podcast With Leo Sidran

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 bo

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

Duchess is a three part close harmony vocal group comprised of Amy Cervini, Hilary Gardner and Melissa Stylianou. All three are accomplished jazz singers in their own right, who came together for a one off gig at the 55 Bar in New York’s West Village several years ago, and realized that there was something there worth exploring. “Three fine singers...join together in swinging harmony to whip up music that traffics in delight…this fresh-voiced triumvirate plays it straight from the heart, leaving any trace of camp or post-modern irony at the door.” — The New Yorker This conversation explores how each singer’s individual background, how they came to form Duchess, and how they all think about career and craft. www.third-story.com  

Benji Rogers was an ex sound-man, bartender, and broke 34 year old musician who was sleeping on an air mattress in his mother’s spare room, when he had a vision. Eight years later, he’s one of the most innovative, outspoken leaders in the music business. As he tells it, he has led a “very full life” and he always had an extremely active mind. That’s very clear in this conversation. In 2009 Benji launched Pledge Music, a website that connects artists to fans. What started as a small startup with a few ambitious and curious partners living on different sides of the Atlantic has become a major leader in crowd funding for music. 3,000,000 fans and over 50,000 artists have contributed to Pledge Music campaigns. In recent years, the list of notable artists has swelled and many chart topping projects have been launched through Pledge. Benji subsequently launched other businesses. His latest project is Dot Blockchain music. How did Benji make this incredible transition into the world of music business technology, how

Saxophonist Ben Wendel grew up in a loud household and he had to fight to be heard. Maybe that’s why it’s so important to him to be heard clearly. Born in Vancouver and raised in Los Angeles, by the time he left the west coast to attend Eastman School of Music, he had already been informed by a community of players and mentors, along with his cohorts in the Leimert Park scene. He carried the openness of that atmosphere with him to Eastman, then back to Los Angeles, and eventually to New York. In college he connected with a group of like musicians and they formed Kneebody, a band that proudly defies category, but that lives in what Wendel refers to as “jazz adjacent” territory. Ben works regularly as both a sideman and a leader. His 2015 video series “The Seasons” featured 12 original duets dedicated to (and featuring) 12 different musicians and released over the course of 12 months. How does working in a visual medium change the way he thinks about making music? What’s happening in LA? What was it like to wor

When Michael Dorf was a teenager in Milwaukee, he told his parents he was going to Madison for the weekend to visit a camp counselor. Instead he snuck off to New York for a lost weekend with a long distance girlfriend. Although it was 35 years ago, he can recall every detail of the city he discovered on that trip and the music scene at the time. Little did he know, he would soon become one of the most influential live music producers in New York, He opened the famed Knitting Factory which provided a home for the Downtown Scene in the 1990s, started a record label and production company, reshaped the way Jewish music is presented in the city, created a series annual tribute concerts at Carnegie Hall, and opened City Winery, a chain of restaurants with live music and wine. How did this happen? To what extent did he mean for it to happen? How has New York changed around him, and how has he changed around the city?  Here Michael takes us through his journey, over a drink at the City Winery. www.third-story.com ww

Pianist Spike Wilner belongs to the tradition of jazz musicians who also own and operate clubs. In his case it came by accident, or rather, a series of accidents. Spike owns and operates Smalls and Mezzrow, two of the most vibrant, hip and important clubs on the jazz scene. Along with his partner Mitch Borden, Spike has cultivated and curated a community of musicians and fans whose influence reaches around the world. In 2007 they began live streaming concerts from Smalls, and since then they have built an archive of over 12,000 concerts (35 more are added each week) featuring 2000 musicians. How does Spike book the club? How does one go about getting a gig at one of the most prestigious clubs in the world? How does success change the dynamic of the club? How does thinking of himself as an archivist affect his job? What is the future of the live jazz business? How does he balance a life of playing music with a life of managing it? As Spike says, “The scene is alive. It’s like electricity. It’s out there. You j

I woke up on the road in Paris the morning after the American Presidential election and saw the results. Then my father and I had this brief conversation. Nearly one year to the day after we lived through a terror attack in Paris, we found ourselves back in the same place. Only this time it was not our personal safety that had been placed at risk. It was something that felt somehow much larger. Last year we recorded a podcast conversation describing what it felt like in Paris on the night of November 13th. At the heart of the conversation this time are the questions: is it immoral under certain conditions to choose to be happy? What is our responsibility as musicians in the face of serious adversity? What do we say to ourselves, the people we love, and the world around us now??

Singer Kurt Elling has been one of the most influential, respected and popular jazz singers on the scene for 2 decades. As the New York Times puts it, “Elling is the standout male vocalist of our time.” The Washington Post agrees: “Since the mid-1990s, no singer in jazz has been as daring, dynamic or interesting as Kurt Elling. With his soaring vocal flights, his edgy lyrics and sense of being on a musical mission, he has come to embody the creative spirit in jazz.” Here he talks about his process, what motivates him, what Chicago offered him and why he moved to New York.

Singer, songwriter, actor, and independent music writer Ari Herstand on finding an audience. Ari’s forthcoming book, How to make it in the new music business (coming this December), has the potential to serve as the definitive guide for independent musicians as they navigate the constantly shifting landscape of the business today. Here he discusses why he feels this is a great time in the music business, why labels aren’t the Holy Grail for artists today, the value of managers, and finding 1000 true fans. He also outlines his personal career, developing his sound and image. And perhaps most interesting of all, he explains acting from the perspective of a musician.

For over 30 years, Michael Feldman hosted the nationally syndicated radio show “Whad’ya Know”. He built the show and his audience from his home base in Madison, Wisconsin. He loved his audience, and he loved his show. When it was taken off the air earlier this year, he suffered it as a great loss. This week he launches WYK 2.0 – the radio show in podcast form. Here he talks about a life in radio, why he thrives on performing in front of an audience, and why podcasts aren't radio.

Singer songwriter Pat MacDonald grew up in a working class family in Green Bay, Wisconsin with no thought of going to college, but he came of age just as the students were marching on campuses all across the country. He was a gifted songwriter early on. By the time he showed up in the post 60s hippy haze of Madison as a 19 year old musician, he was writing world class songs. He refers to himself at that time as a street urchin. But he was street smart, with a sharp tongue and wit to match it. When Pat, along with his then wife Barbara moved from Madison to Austin, Texas – basically the only place weirder that they could go - they renamed themselves Timbuk3 and put out “The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades”.  That song was one of those classic misunderstandings between an artist and his audience. The chorus implied optimism and hope for the future, but the verses revealed a darker truth. In recent years he has become an activist and song-festival creator in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. He's also the owner of

Engineer and producer Al Schmitt is the embodiment of recorded music in America. He started out as a recording engineer in New York in the late 1940s and has consistently delivered some of the finest music since then. He worked with some of the greatest artists ever to record –Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley – and he’s still making relevant records. He’s won 23 Grammys - the first one in 1962 for a Henry Mancini album and the most recent in 2012 with Paul McCartney. Here he covers his career in personal, professional and technical terms. From recording big band music and race records in the 1950s to the roll of digital recording in the 21st century, the impact of drugs on the music business, the importance of good personal relationships, and what it feels like to capture magic on tape.

Guitarist Adam Levy is probably best known for his work with Norah Jones. He played with her for years, wrote songs for her, and really transformed from an instrumentalist to a songwriter through his tenure in her band. But by the time he met Norah, he was already well into a career as a sideman and jazz player in San Francisco. Here he talks about his journey from coast to coast and back again, the process of becoming a songwriter, and how he developed his approach as a "content creator".  We also explored what he calls the benefits of the tyrannical record producer, the challenges of writing about loss and pain, and the importance of finding joy in music. As Adam says it: "Don't sit around and wait for something to happen. Make something happen."