325: Ben Sidran - Free In America

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 Goldings, John Cowherd, Gilad Hekselman and Christian McBride, alongside her working quartet, which includes her husband, Dan Pugach, on drums. The conceit of the project, which is broken into five parts — The Mirror, The Martyr, The Malediction, The Reckoning and The Requiem — came when a friend described a moment in her own life when she realized that, after years of seeing herself as the victim, she had become the villain in someone else's story. Nicole was fascinated by the idea that the hero and the villain could be the same person. That became part of the world of The Devil I Knew. It's a record about reckoning with your own choices, told by an artist fascinated by narrative, drama and what she calls "jazz lore": the stories and mythology that surround the music. That same instinct led Zuraitis to found the Modern Songbook Society, a project devoted to the idea that the Great American Songbook doesn't necessarily have to be a closed book. Nicole says she was a late bloomer. As she tells it, "I wasn't a fully baked cake until I was 37 years old. Like, I didn't burst into the scene when I moved to New York at 25. [...] I was so nervous. And just constantly learning. And so my cake was not even fully baked. But then once it's baked, I'm like, 'For crying out loud, nobody wants this cake? Like, this is good cake. Somebody wants this cake? No? Fine. I'll eat the cake. It's fine.'" By any conventional measure, the cake is baked. Her album How Love Begins won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2024. And yet, even after that recognition, she says she still feels like something of an outsider in the jazz business. She plays nearly 150 shows a year, mostly on the road, but remains fiercely independent and largely self-managed — still baking her own cake. We talked recently about all of this: about her early years as a rising soccer player and the injury that led her from one kind of pitch to another, her brief stint as a trombone player, her years of hustling in New York, what it means to live a jazz life in today's music business, and how she went about creating the world of The Devil I Knew. www.third-story.com www.leosidran.substack.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story

Duncan Sheik's career did not follow a straight line. After studying semiotics at Brown University, he emerged in the mid 1990s as a pop singer songwriter with his hit "Barely Breathing", and quickly revealed himself to bend toward more literate adult oriented rock. He continued to make records and land himself on the charts but also began exploring composition for film and theater. The success of 2006's Spring Awakening, a hit rock musical that featured Sheik's score (and which won the Tony for Best Original Score as well as a Grammy for Best Musical Show Album) planted him firmly in the world of Broadway. He continued to write for theater, often collaborating with poet and playwright Steven Sater. Over more than three decades he explored electronic music, folk music, and enjoyed covering songs by his favorite writers, many of whom were influential to him as a boy. In this interview, recorded in late 2020, he talked about his career, his songwriting, technology in music, how meditating and chanting have helped him throughout the years, how becoming a father influenced his work, his life in Covid and what it means to release music in strange and trying times, and what exactly Semiotics is anyway. Duncan Sheik died on September 17, 2026. This conversation is a reminder of the breadth of his curiosity and the thoughtfulness with which he approached both music and life. It offers a rare glimpse into the mind of a singular artist whose creative journey was never quite what anyone might have expected. https://www.third-story.com/listen/duncansheik www.leosidran.substack.com  

Sullivan Fortner is one of the most admired and influential pianists of his generation, a musician whose curiosity stretches from the traditions of jazz and gospel to synthesizers, studio experimentation and beyond. Here Sullivan talks about growing up in New Orleans, learning to play organ in church, nearly choosing medicine over music, and the teachers and mentors who shaped his path. He reflects on studying with Barry Harris, playing with Roy Hargrove and Stefon Harris, the importance of continuing to learn no matter how far you get, and his lifelong fascination with sound. He also talks about his relationship with Cécile McLorin Salvant, as a musical collaborator and partner in life, and how their connection has changed the way he thinks about accompaniment, lyrics, listening and space. Along the way, Sullivan discusses synesthesia, literally tasting music, making Solo Game and Leave That In There, and what it means to remain open to discovery while staying deeply connected to tradition. A conversation about listening, learning, collaboration, curiosity, and following the music wherever it leads. www.third-story.com www.leosidran.substack.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story

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, brings those threads together through what she calls "Folk and Futurism" a meeting place for tradition, technology and a distinctly contemporary musical identity. www.third-story.com www.leosidran.substack.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story  

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 record would go on to sell millions of copies and win the Grammy for Album of the Year. It would also generate enormous controversy over Simon's decision to record in apartheid South Africa during a cultural boycott. Music historian Ashley Kahn tells the whole complicated story in his new book, Days of Miracle and Wonder: Paul Simon and the Trials and Triumphs of Graceland. Here Ashley talks about his career, the making of Graceland, Paul Simon's unusual creative process, and the complicated cultural and political questions that have followed the album for forty years. www.third-story.com https://www.wbgo.org/podcast/art-of-the-story/2026-08-19/ashley-kahn-on-the-miracles-and-wonder-of-paul-simons-graceland https://leosidran.substack.com/  

For his 83rd birthday, Ben Sidran revisits a 1974 DownBeat profile (done when he was 30) and considers what has changed - and what hasn't - over more than half a century of music and life. In his annual birthday conversation with Leo, he reflects on aging, ambition, practice and the surprising persistence of a worldview formed long ago. www.third-story.com www.leosidran.substack.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story https://youtu.be/SZY4QRpJCTw

Ben Wikler has spent his career moving between comedy and politics, communication and organizing. Growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, a city shaped by civic engagement, academic inquiry, and the satirical spirit that gave rise to The Onion, he developed a worldview in which humor isn't a distraction from democracy, but one of the ways people learn to trust one another enough to participate in it. Wikler has become one of the country's most closely watched political organizers. He was the chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin from 2019-2025, and is the author of This Is the Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy. But this conversation isn't about campaign tactics or election cycles. Instead, it's about the values and experiences that shaped him: the Wisconsin Idea, the role of humor in public life, the changing media landscape, and why curiosity, optimism, and solidarity remain essential ingredients of democratic life. Recorded at the Madison home where Ben grew up, and where he and his wife are now raising their own family, this is a conversation about place, purpose, and what it takes to keep believing in the promise of democracy. www.third-story.com www.leosidran.substack.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story

A conversation with Ben Sidran, from Greece on America's 250th birthday, about jazz, democracy, identity, and what remains when the scaffolding begins to shake.

Before The Irish Goodbye became one of the most acclaimed debut novels of 2025, Heather Aimee O'Neill spent years quietly writing it while building a career helping other writers tell their stories. Here, she discusses the vulnerability of ambition, the challenge of living an authentic life, and the strange transition from observer to protagonist when a lifelong dream finally comes true. www.third-story.com www.leosidran.substack.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story  

Saxophonist and bandleader Lakecia Benjamin has become one of the most dynamic voices in jazz today. Here she talks about hanging up on Clark Terry, finding her way from Washington Heights to the international stage, and how the mentors, heroes, setbacks and aspirations that shaped her journey continue to inform her new album, We Dream. www.third-story.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story