329: Sofia Rei
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
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.
info_outline
328: Ashley Kahn
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
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...
info_outline
327: Ben Sidran at 83
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
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. https://youtu.be/SZY4QRpJCTw
info_outline
326: Ben Wikler
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
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...
info_outline
325: Ben Sidran - Free In America
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
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.
info_outline
324: Heather Aimee O'Neill
The Third Story Podcast with Leo Sidran
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.
info_outline
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_outlineOver the past two decades, Natalia Lafourcade has evolved from alt-pop prodigy to one of the most revered voices in Latin American music. With 15 Latin Grammys and 4 Grammys to her name, she’s known for blending contemporary expression with deep cultural roots. Her latest album, Cancionera, is a bold new statement—a stripped-down, emotionally direct record that draws on her Veracruz heritage, the son jarocho tradition, and a mystical alter ego she calls La Cancionera.
In this conversation, Natalia reflects on the power of presence, the value of silence, and her decision to perform much of her new music solo on tour. She talks about the “theater of the song,” where voice and guitar take center stage, and about her ongoing effort to honor tradition while contributing something new.
She also speaks candidly about recording live with 18 musicians, working again with producer Adan Jodorowsky, and bringing this music to audiences around the world at a time of division and border politics. Without preaching, she offers a quiet but powerful vision of connection, compassion, and cultural memory—through song.
www.third-story.com
www.leosidran.substack.com
www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story