323: Lakecia Benjamin
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
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.
info_outline
322: Miles Davis
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
Miles Davis spent his life searching. He changed the sound of jazz repeatedly, assembling generations of musicians around him and pushing constantly toward something new. Few artists loom so large over the history of the music. To mark what would have been his 100th birthday today, I’m revisiting a rare 1986 conversation between Miles and my dad, Ben Sidran, recorded on the terrace of Miles’ Malibu home. At a time when Miles was reticent about revisiting his past, in this interview he reflected on Kind of Blue, his early musical development and influences, as well as his ideas about...
info_outline
321: Julieta Venegas
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
Mexican singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas on how growing up in Tijuana - a border city suspended between Mexico and the United States - developed an instinct for living “in-between,” musically and personally. She traces her path from a musically curious childhood in Tijuana to her move to Mexico City, the emergence as one of Latin music’s defining singer-songwriters and her return to her roots through her new album Norteña and memoir, both of which revisit the border identity and intuition that first shaped her artistic life.
info_outline
320: Dida Pelled
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
Dida Pelled on her latest album I Wish You Would, a blues-focused project recorded with Tony Scherr, Kenny Wollesen, and Sullivan Fortner. Along the way she considers her approach to tradition, identity, and finding a personal voice across genres. And she talks about she discovered the truth about her sexuality, her singing, and the six strings she loves so much.
info_outline
319: Emily Cavanagh's Song For You
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
Singer, songwriter, and founder of , on music, service, resilience, and finding purpose in uncertain times. In the early days of the pandemic, Emily began calling hospitals with one simple question: “Does anyone need a song?” That question became A Song For You, a nonprofit that has delivered hundreds of personalized songs to patients, families, and healthcare workers. She talks about her Chicago roots, accidentally becoming famous in Ireland, relearning how to walk after a mysterious illness, running away from the altar, and why she says she’s never felt lonely or lost. A warm, funny,...
info_outline
318: Michael Leviton and The Tell
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
At his monthly series The Tell, writer and storyteller Michael Leviton brings together performers and audiences for an evening where nothing is scripted and no lineup is announced. At The Tell, audiences arrive without knowing who will take the stage. Each night features four storytellers and two musical performances, unfolding over two sets. The result is a dynamic and unscripted experience where stories can be funny, moving, surprising—or all three at once. Leviton created The Tell as an alternative to more formal storytelling formats. Rather than polished, rehearsed narratives, he...
info_outline
317: Janis Siegel and The Scent of Danger
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
When singer Janis Siegel was invited to help produce a Women’s History Month event at the United Nations, everything seemed aligned—until she was told, just days before, that she would not be allowed to speak. She had been flagged for her social media posts. Here she reflects on that moment and what it reveals about a broader cultural shift. Drawing on conversations about jazz, democracy, memory, and fear—and voices ranging from Louis Armstrong to Milan Kundera—this piece explores how authoritarianism doesn’t arrive all at once, but quietly, through hesitation and self-censorship. At...
info_outline
316: Ben Sidran - Jazz and Modernism
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
When I arrived in Palm Springs last month, a few days before the concert-lecture I was to play with my father, Ben Sidran, I found him surrounded by months of research notes, trying to wrestle his ideas into something coherent. The performance was part of the Palm Springs International Jazz Festival during the city’s annual Modernism Week, and it grew out of an earlier program we presented at Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio in Spring Green, Wisconsin. What began as a playful idea about the relationship between architecture and music gradually expanded into a deeper...
info_outline
315: Phoebe Katis
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
Phoebe Katis — a UK-born, New York–based songwriter can pinpoint the moment when her life and career were quietly reoriented. It started with a single direct message. Katis traces her journey from being a young singer-songwriter in England, measuring herself against inherited ideas of success, to becoming part of a global musical community through a series of small, intentional actions — including the DM that led to her first collaboration with Cory Wong, years of touring, a move to the U.S., and a creative and personal life she never could have planned. At the center of the conversation...
info_outline
314: Keren Ann
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
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 whom she co-wrote several late-career songs, including the hit “Jardin d’hiver.” From her debut...
info_outlinepablopablo - born Pablo Drexler - is a Madrid-based singer, songwriter, and producer. The son of two acclaimed artists, Jorge Drexler and Ana Laan, here he talks about how he found his own voice, sound, and artistic identity.
His debut full-length album, Canciones en mi, is out now. The title is a bilingual play on words—“in E” (as in the musical key), and “in me”—and it perfectly captures the spirit of the record: introspective, expressive, and sonically bold.
Pablo shares the story of growing up in a small town outside Madrid with a big, multilingual worldview. We discuss his early experiments in music and production, his years studying abroad, and his time touring and collaborating with artists like C. Tangana. He opens up about stepping away from the Drexler name—on the advice of his father—to make space for his music to be heard on its own terms.
We dive deep into questions of identity, language, and legacy: Why does he now write exclusively in Spanish? What does it mean to create a sound that feels personal without being confessional? How do you balance the instinct to innovate with the desire to stay grounded?
Along the way, we talk about the emotional clarity that comes with pressure, the power of building a sonic world, and the beauty of embracing simple ideas and making them feel new.
At just 27, Pablo Pablo is already a Latin Grammy-winning artist, having contributed to major collaborations with Jorge Drexler, C. Tangana, and Nathy Peluso. But Canciones en mi is his proper introduction as a solo artist—and it’s a striking one.
This is a conversation about roots and branches, about staying true while branching out, and about what happens when you finally find the music that sounds like you.