Podcast
The Third Story with Leo Sidran
Hosted by Leo Sidran · EN
THE THIRD STORY features long-form interviews with creative people of all types, hosted by musician Leo Sidran. Their stories of discovery, loss, ambition, identity, risk, and reward are deeply moving and compelling for all of us as we embark on our own creative journeys.
29episodes
Episodes
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324: Heather Aimee O'Neill
1w ago00:57:38Tap to summarizeBefore 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
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323: Lakecia Benjamin
3w ago01:12:35Tap to summarizeSaxophonist 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
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322: Miles Davis
May 2600:52:02Tap to summarizeMiles 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 creativity, individuality and what it means to make a meaningful artistic contribution. To start the episode, Ben and I had our own conversation about the Miles interview, his memory of doing it, how it resonated at the time and how it resonates today. In the 40 years since it was recorded, the interview has become one of the definitive documents of Miles' thinking during that period. Ben's original interview with Miles Davis was originally made for his NPR program Sidran on Record, and is now part of his Talking Jazz project. The full archive is available at https://talkingjazz.bandcamp.com/album/talking-jazz Today's episode image is borrowed from "Notes from the Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame" produced by Quoted Studios and Jazz at Lincoln Center.
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321: Julieta Venegas
May 1800:53:26Tap to summarizeMexican 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. www.third-story.com www.leosidran.substack.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story
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320: Dida Pelled
May 301:13:31Tap to summarizeDida 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. www.third-story.com www.leosidran.substack.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story
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319: Emily Cavanagh's Song For You
Apr 2101:03:17Tap to summarizeSinger, songwriter, and founder of Song For You, Emily Cavanagh 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, and moving conversation about what music can do when it matters most. www.third-story.com www.leosidran.substack.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story
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318: Michael Leviton and The Tell
Apr 1400:48:39Tap to summarizeAt 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 favors stories that are chronological, unpredictable, and rooted in real experience. As he explains, he's drawn to stories that are "wild rather than relatable," and to storytellers who embrace vulnerability over resolution. Over the past decade, The Tell has grown into something more than a performance series. It has become a community—one where people connect, form relationships, and share experiences in a space built on honesty and curiosity. Despite its success, Leviton resists pressure to expand or commercialize the series. For him, the goal isn't growth—it's maintaining the spirit of the experience itself. Here he explains the philosophy behind The Tell, and what it reveals about the role of storytelling in our lives. www.third-story.com www.leosidran.substack.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story
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317: Janis Siegel and The Scent of Danger
Mar 2800:36:12Tap to summarizeWhen 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 a time when voices are still rising in protest, the question remains: what happens when speaking starts to feel like a risk? www.leosidran.substack.com
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316: Ben Sidran - Jazz and Modernism
Mar 1100:59:43Tap to summarizeWhen 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 exploration of the natural structures that shape both. Along the way we found ourselves diving into the harmonic series, overtones, Fibonacci sequence, and the physics of vibration, asking how these natural phenomena influence the way we hear rhythm, harmony, and beauty. Drawing on conversations with musicians like Gil Goldstein, Howard Levy, and Jacob Collier, the episode is part personal story, part philosophical inquiry, and part behind-the-scenes look at how creative work actually gets made. And how, in the end, even the most abstract ideas often begin the same way: with a gig. www.third-story.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story www.leosidran.substack.com/
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315: Phoebe Katis
Feb 601:04:55Tap to summarizePhoebe 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 is the idea of the inflection point — the moments that don't announce themselves while they're happening, but later reveal themselves as before-and-after lines. Katis speaks candidly about ambition, people-pleasing, pop music as a delivery system for emotional truth, and the reality of sustaining a creative life without asking your art to carry everything. Her latest album, A Coming Of Age was released in late 2025. Here she reflects on success and arrival, the value of side hustles, pop music as a delivery system for truth, how to build a creative life without asking your art to carry everything.and what it means to keep "coming of age" well into adulthood. www.third-story.com www.leosidran.substack.com www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story
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