The Third Story with Leo Sidran Leo Sidran

For saxophonist Ben Wendel, the pandemic provided the space for him to develop his latest solo record, All One (Edition Records), a project that is both very solitary and very collaborative. It features a woodwind choir of saxophones and bassoons performed entirely by Ben, and then joined by special guests like singers Cecile McLorin Salvant and Jose James, guitarist Bill Frisell, and trumpeter Terence Blanchard. 
Wendel is no stranger to experimentation or to collaboration. As a member of the genre bending group Kneebody, he has always had one foot in contemporary music. And previous solo projects were motivated by his desire to collaborate, like The Seasons which found him composing 12 original pieces dedicated to 12 musicians he admired and then performed with those musicians. 
Wendel performed at the Village Vanguard in New York earlier this spring. He was joined by his longtime friend and musical partner, drummer Nate Wood, Harish Raghavan on bass, Gilad Hekselman & Nir Felder on guitar (they split the week between them) and Larry Goldings on piano. 
We spoke that week about playing in that sacred space, his desire to connect and to belong, his ongoing negotiation with technology, and how his personal experience during the pandemic influenced his music. Plus, learning the ineffable wisdom of his elders in the music.
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Beth Nielsen Chapman is a songwriter’s songwriter. She began writing before she had any idea that it could be a career; it was just something that came naturally to her. When she first started out, there was no way to possibly imagine just how important songs would become in her journey - both professionally and personally.

Here she talks about that journey, which includes writing songs for Martina McBride, Willie Nelson, Tanya Tucker, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Crystal Gayle, Juice Newton, Bette Midler, and most famously co-writing Faith Hill’s hit song “This Kiss”. She has released sixteen albums as a solo artist as well.

Along the way, she also talks about processing grief and loss through music (and making music through grief). We spoke only weeks after her second husband, Bob passed away. Her first husband, Ernest, died in 1994. She also tells the stories behind many of her hit songs, and lays out her philosophy of creativity and craft, including what it means to “write from the center of your truth,” channeling humanity’s “collective wisdom” and what it means to have “investment without attachment” in songwriting.

Beth’s most recent album, Crazy Town came out in 2022.
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Pianist-composer Vijay Iyer has been described by The New York Times as a “social conscience, multimedia collaborator, system builder, rhapsodist, historical thinker and multicultural gateway.” He has been praised by Pitchfork as “one of the best in the world at what he does,” by the Los Angeles Weekly as “a boundless and deeply important young star,” and by Minnesota Public Radio as “an American treasure.”
He received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a United States Artist Fellowship, a Grammy nomination, the Alpert Award in the Arts, and two German “Echo” awards, and was voted Downbeat Magazine’s Jazz Artist of the Year four times in the last decade. 
But beyond all that praise, he is at his core simply a seeker of genuine connection and community. Here he talks about growing up in Rochester, NY as one of a small handful of first generation Indian Americans (his parents immigrated), how he developed his musical identity alongside an academic career as a scientist (he did his undergraduate work in math and physics at Yale and holds a PHD from UC Berkeley in the cognitive science of music), creating work for an uncertain future, how to make music matter, and his most recent recordings. 
He released Love In Exile - a collaborative album with Arooj Aftab and Shahzad Ismaily - last month on Verve Records. 
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To say Christian McBride is prolific is both obvious and an understatement. The list of his projects is too long to fit neatly into any one container - he’s a musician, an educator, a composer, an artistic director, and a broadcaster. He’s an ambassador, a personality, an icon. And of course, he is a bass player. 
One gets the sense that his days are simply fuller than most people’s days. He always seems to be coming from some other event, or heading out to another gig. Honestly it’s hard not to run into Christian McBride if you’re engaging with this music on any level. 
At 50 years old, he has appeared on more than 300 recordings as a sideman, has made nearly 20 as a leader, and is an eight-time Grammy Award winner. There’s nothing trivial about his career. But as he picks up his bass to play, there is an almost mischievous gleam in his eye - a childlike excitement, and a clear sense of joy. He loves to play and it’s infectious - it’s hard not to feel good watching him do it.
Here he talks about his band New Jawn and their most recent release Prime, as well as his project The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons, which was released on vinyl recently, what makes a great music city, leading by example, what it means to live the life you believe in, and why he went “kicking and screaming” into playing the acoustic bass as a boy.
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Accepting her Grammy award for Best New Artist last month, Samara Joy looked out at a sea of faces that she had grown up admiring and said, “I’ve been watching y’all on TV for so long…I’m born and raised in the Bronx.” 
It was almost as though she was reminding herself of just how far she had come, and just how quickly. That was a big moment for the 23 year old singer who was just a year and a half out of college. As she delivered her speech, the camera cut to Lizzo and Adelle, each with a hint of a tear in their eyes.
It was also a big moment for jazz at the Grammys and by extension in the larger popular consciousness (Samara was only the second jazz singer to win the award - Esperanza Spalding was the first). Samara also took home the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album that night for her record Linger Awhile. 
In many ways, Samara Joy’s extremely rapid rise is like a fairy tale. On the other hand, it’s a reminder that sometimes artists arrive just at the right time and meet their moment head on. In this case, it seems that the world was waiting for Samara Joy. 
What is like for the 23 year old to manage so much success so quickly? What must she be feeling right now? 
Today Samara Joy will tell us in her own words about where she came from, how she got here, and where she thinks she might be going next. And - she does it all while sitting on the curb in the parking lot behind her hotel in Palm Springs, California, where we caught up last month, just a couple weeks after her Grammy success.
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This week on the Third Story Podcast I’m turning the tables on myself and sharing the stories and the creative process behind my new record What’s Trending. Featuring excerpts of past episodes with artists who collaborated on the record and inspired the songs, including Boz Scaggs, Louis Cato, Janis Siegel, Michael Leonhart, Peter Coyote and more.
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