Ben Sidran and his son Leo Sidran stopped by the JazzPHX studios on Feb 26, 2026 before their sold out show at the MIM Music Theatre to talk with Blaise Lantana about their relationship, music, careers, the world today and Ben's new album "Are We There Yet?"
BEN SIDRAN
Ben Sidran has been a major force in the modern day history of jazz and popular music, having played keyboards with or produced such artists as Van Morrison, Diana Ross, Michael Franks, Rickie Lee Jones, Mose Allison and Steve Miller.
It's been a long and varied journey for Sidran—from playing boogie-woogie piano as a six-year old in Racine, Wisconsin, leaning into his jazz records, “literally like an Eskimo huddled around a fire,” to growing up to play boogie-woogie piano around the world. Despite the reality that he may be better known in Europe and Japan than in America—a fact of life for most jazz musicians—Ben Sidran is an American success story.
A jazz pianist of international renown, lyricist of a rock classic, award-winning national broadcaster, record and video producer, scholar, author, journalist, and father to a second-generation musical prodigy, Sidran makes your average Renaissance man look like a slacker.
Born in Chicago in 1943—his father was a friend of Saul Bellow's—Sidran was raised in the industrial lakeshore city of Racine, Wisconsin, going up to Madison to play keyboards at frat-house parties while still a teenager in 1960. The next year he was enrolled at the university, playing dates on campus and around town. He soon joined the Ardells, a Southern comfort party band led by frat boy singer Steve Miller and his friend Boz Scaggs. But when Miller and Scaggs went west to become stars, Sidran stayed to complete his degree in English lit.
After graduating from the UW, Sidran moved to England to pursue a degree in American Studies at the University of Sussex, in Brighton. But when the Steve Miller Band came to England the following year to record with the legendary British engineer Glyn Johns, Sidran found himself back on the two-track life of academia and music.
It started with his haunting harpsichord break on Scaggs’ “Baby's Calling Me Home” for the Miller band's debut album, “Children of the Future.” A little later on, Ben would pen the lyrics for Miller's “Space Cowboy,” earning a place in rock history (and enough royalties to pay for his graduate degrees).
While still pursuing his studies, Sidran also developed a relationship with Johns, often doing session work at Olympic Studios with musicians like Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones. In 1969, Johns produced Sidran's demo tape, featuring Charlie Watts, Peter Frampton and others.
Upon receiving his doctorate in American Studies at the height of the war-induced grad school glut, Sidran faced bleak prospects in academia. Then he realized his time for studying the information was over; it was time to become the information. So in the fall of 1970, after dropping his dissertation with some publishers in New York, he moved to Los Angeles to go into the record business.
Things started to break in a hurry. First came competing bids to publish his thesis; Ben bypassed the low-key offer from Oxford University Press to take a lucrative (to him, at the time) offer from Holt, Rinehart & Winston to publish the dissertation as Black Talk, or How the Music of Black America Created a Radical Alternative to the Values of Western Literary Tradition.
Then, thanks to an introduction from Johns, Sidran soon had his own record deal on Capitol Records. Feel Your Groove, a jazz/rock hybrid, featured Blue Mitchell on trumpet (the first of five such engagements), guitarists Scaggs and Ed Davis and Jim Keltner on drums.
Recognizing Ben's skills on both sides of the studio, Capitol offered him a job as staff producer. But because his wife Judy was unhappy in the isolated haze of the Hollywood hills, Sidran did the unthinkable and walked away from LA in the summer of ‘71, returning to Madison just as “Feel Your Groove” was released and Black Talk was published (a set of circumstances which did not provoke the label into excessive promotional activity). Taking up the Hammond B3 residency at a local club, Sidran soon found another life-long musical partner when James Brown played in town and his drummer, Clyde Stubblefield, stayed behind.
It wasn't long before another national label came calling - Blue Thumb Records, which released Ben's I Lead a Life in 1972, quickly followed by Puttin' In Time on Planet Earth (1973) and Don't Let Go, (1974).
Sidran showcased his many talents in varied fields the year he turned 30 - leading a national tour, producing Tony Williams and Paul Pena, creating and hosting a weekly television series, even returning to academia to teach “the social aesthetics of record production” at the UW.
After the demise of Blue Thumb, Sidran joined the Arista Records roster, releasing Free in America (1976), The Doctor is In (1977), A Little Kiss in the Night (1978), Live at Montreux, (1979) and, for A&M, The Cat in the Hat, (1980).
Although he developed a significant career in radio and television work during the eighties (see sidebar), he kept his hands on the keyboard, recording Get to the Point (PolyStar, 1981), Old Songs for the New Depression, (Antilles, 1982), Bop City, (Antilles, 1983), On the Cool Side, (Windham Hill, 1984), Have You Met … Barcelona (Orange Blue Productions, 1986), On the Live Side, (Windham Hill, 1986) and Too Hot to Touch, (Windham Hill 1987). His production credits that decade included Ever Since the World Ended and My Backyard for Mose Allison and Born 2B Blue for Steve Miller, with whom he also toured.
Sidran continued to click on many levels throughout the 1990s, even expanded his efforts to include starting his own label, Go Jazz Records, with partners in Japan. Early Sidran-produced Go Jazz releases included Georgie Fame's Cool Cat Blues, and Phil Upchurch's Whatever Happened to the Blues, featuring Mavis Staples and Chaka Kahn.
In 1993, Sidran combined his art with his soul on Life's a Lesson, a jazz-infused collection of Jewish liturgical and folk songs, featuring singer Carole King and a host of jazz luminaries. In a five-decade career, this Go Jazz release is one of the crowning personal and artistic achievements.
The end of the century brought another emotional highlight - the release of Concert for Garcia Lorca, a tribute to the martyred Spanish poet, Federico Garcia Lorca. Recorded in the courtyard of Garcia Lorca's home, the album earned Ben another Grammy nomination (he lost to Madonna).
Ben maintained his steady output of high-quality work, both on his own (Mr. P's Shuffle, and Live at the Celebrity Lounge,) and with such artists as Van Morrison and Diana Ross. In 2001 he produced two more Grammy-nominated albums, Mose Chronicles (Mose Allison) and It's Like This (Rickie Lee Jones).
Building on the Spanish influence that infused the Garcia Lorca release, in 2002 Ben wrote and produced (along with son Leo) the bi-lingual children's CD, El Elefante, winner of the Parents’ Choice Award. That year, Ben somehow found time to return to the UW as artist-in-residence, and release his critically acclaimed memoir, Ben Sidran: A Life in the Music (Taylor).
In 2003, Ben and Leo created Nardis Music, a boutique label featuring enhanced CD's of all original releases. Among its first releases was Ben’s own Nick's Bump (2004). This was followed by Bumpin’ at the Sunside, recorded live in Paris (2006) and Cien Noches, recorded live in Madrid (2008). In 2010, Sidran completed Dylan Different, a tribute to the music of Bob Dylan; in 2012, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Wisconsin and published his long awaited text on the Jewish influence on American popular music, There Was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream. His most recent recordings are Don’t Cry For No Hipster (April, 2013) Blue Camus (April 2015), Picture Him Happy (January, 2017), Ben There, Done That (January, 2019) Who’s The Old Guy Now (2020), Swing State (2022) and Are We There Yet? (2025).
His most recent book The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma was released on Nardis Books in 2020 and won the Independent Book Publishers award for arts biography.
Ben and his wife Judy still reside in Madison, Wisconsin.
LEO SIDRAN
I'm a multi instrumentalist musician, producer, arranger, composer, recording artist, and podcast host.
I was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin, which is sometimes referred to as 70 square miles surrounded by reality. My father, Ben Sidran, another multifaceted music man, provided my early musical sustenance. My mother, a weaver and travel agent, provided texture and safe passage.
I got my start writing songs professionally as a teenager when the Steve Miller Band recorded four of my songs for their 1993 Wide River album. My father was working with Miller at the time, which is how I made the connection, but even then, at the ripe old age of 15, I was interested in production. So, Steve invited me to play keyboards, guitars and drums on the record.
Subsequently, I attended the University of Wisconsin to study History and Spanish. During a year abroad living in Spain, I fell in love with Spanish music, and after college I spent quite a bit of time back and forth between Madison and Madrid. During that time, I developed a strong relationship with several Madrid- based "Latin alternative" artists like Jorge Drexler and Ana Laan. I co-produced the Academy Award Winning song, "Al Otro Lado Del Rio" from the film The Motorcycle Diaries with Jorge Drexler in 2005.
After the Oscar win, I made a move to Brooklyn and not only started producing records for other artists, but also composing music for film and television commercials amassing a catalog of 100s of major TV ads for clients like Coca-Cola, Visa, Lincoln, McDonalds, Stella Artois, Ford, IBM, Google, Garnier and over a dozen film scores for outlets such as ESPN 30 for 30, Discovery, IFC, Sundance, and PBS.
In addition, around this time, I started a small label called Nardis Music with my dad releasing our solo projects, as well as some projects that we produced for other artists, like Clyde Stubblefield (James Brown's original funky drummer). I have produced all of Ben Sidran's records for the last fifteen years.
I’ve also continued to work with Latin artists, including Alex Cuba (I co-produced the Latin Grammy winning Healer album with him), Kevin Johansen (I co-produced the Latin Grammy nominated Mis Americas Vol. ½), and Marlango.
As a drummer, I’ve played and recorded with jazz luminaries including Phil Woods, Howard Levy, David Fathead Newman, Clark Terry and Dave Grusin, and as an engineer I’ve worked with artists ranging from Snarky Puppy to Massive Attack.
To round out my penchant for curating the music I love, I launched a podcast called The Third Story featuring interviews with musicians and other members of the creative class about their personal stories and professional journeys.
Finally, I’ve released eight solo records. My most recent full length project What’s Trending was released in Spring, 2023.
I live in Brooklyn with my wife, our daughter, and a 12 pound poodle.
[0:00 - 0:17] [Music: "Ever Since the World Ended" – Quirky, mid-tempo vocal jazz featuring piano and laid-back percussion]
Blaise Lantana: That’s Ben Sidran on Jazz PHX doing "Ever Since the World Ended." And his son Leo is playing the drums, Rick Margitza's in there. Good afternoon, I’m Blaise Lantana, and today for lunchtime, I have Ben Sidran and Leo Sidran here with me in the studio. Welcome guys. Glad you could come by.
Ben Sidran: Thanks, Blaise. Appreciate it.
Blaise: I find it very intriguing, of course, I know about Ben Sidran, I've known about you for many years, but I didn't know about Leo. So has he always been a musician and did you include him with your work early on?
Ben: Well, yeah. I mean, we've been playing together since he was five years old. I mean, he's always been musical, he's always been interested. He grew up on the road, he grew up in recording studios, and, well, he can tell you better than I can, but yes, Leo has always been part of the musical situation at our house.
Blaise: Wow. So did you—did you pick an instrument early on? Did you have one that you liked?
Leo Sidran: Well, I don't know if I picked it or if it was picked for me. A drum set did arrive in the house when I was like five years old and, you know, I was too young, I think, to choose it, but I think my parents thought it would be a good fit for me. I was a little restless and had a lot of emotional energy and, but I also think strategically, if you're a piano player and you only have one kid, drums is a good—a good addition. Yeah, because you have your built-in rhythm section. And so from the very beginning, we set up drums and piano in the same room and we were just playing together.
Blaise: Wow. That’s incredible. I think it’s incredible. But then you played other instruments. Now you play all kinds of things.
Leo: Yeah, I mean, that’s—and that’s not something that was necessarily planned either. I think it was because I liked being alone and making music, and I was interested in technology early on also, in learning how—I was just at that generation that learned how to record ourselves while we were playing and so I taught myself kind of all of this stuff at the same time. The piano and the guitar and the drums and the recording production, it all kind of blended together as one process.
Blaise: That’s kind of intriguing. Well, of course, you’re in a musical family here. Your dad is playing piano at an amazing level and writing songs, and were you intrigued by what, who he got to play with or got to meet? Was that part of the mix?
Leo: The people were really the motivating thing for me. I mean, I loved the music, I was obsessive about the music and particularly about the music that he was making. And part of it was that I loved the music and part of it was that I loved these people and I just wanted to be taken kind of seriously by them. And so what would it require for me to get to show up and be at the table with these wonderful people? Not only musicians, but you know, Ben is a—I like that this is an interview where I can talk about him and he can talk about me—you know, Ben has been a journalist and he was a professor and he, you know, he's kind of been devoted to the jazz life in a lot of different ways. And so they weren't all musicians; sometimes they were hanging out in radio stations like we're doing right now. This was another thing that was a big part of my childhood. And I just wanted to be around all of those kinds of people.
Blaise: Ben, when you start bringing your son in, I mean it's fun, he's your kid, but was it like, "Okay, go sit over there and now we have to make real music," or were you really inclusive?
Ben: No, it—from the beginning, I accepted him as another body in the room and I would listen to his opinion like I would listen to anybody's opinion. I never treated him as a lesser force because, you know, I find kids can actually be behind their eyes in a way that adults can't and they can tell you stuff that you might not hear elsewhere. I certainly found, for example, and this is kind of off the track, I found being around Leo and his friends somewhat inspiring because young kids have this great sense of fairness and justice, you know? And then they of course learn that life is not fair and there is no justice. But I found it great to have him along and he would come to the radio stations like this when he was five or six years old and he'd be hanging out, he'd sit in, he'd play with his stuff, but he'd be in the room and his energy was always part of it. And the musicians—I mean, I remember Phil Woods calling him "Youngblood" all the time. "Hey, Youngblood, come over here." You know, musicians were very generous.
Blaise: Well, it’s kind of a wonderful opportunity, I think, for musicians to encounter a young person who’s excited about what they’re doing.
Leo: Absolutely. There's no question that if you demonstrate interest, real genuine interest, the community will show up for you again and again. That was always my experience. I was never discouraged by anyone to do it; I was only encouraged. And I think that they must have seen that interest in me in the same way that when I see young—you see it. You see it, there’s nothing to talk about, you could just see when somebody's into it, a young person that's into it. I remember I ran into—I was walking through an airport with my daughter a few years ago when she was younger, she's a young teenager now, but let's say five years ago or something, we ran into this drummer Kendrick Scott in an airport and I said, "Hi, Kendrick, it's Leo Sidran," and he, before he'd even acknowledged me, got on his knee and he fist-bumped my daughter. And it was like, again, it was like, "Oh, you're part of the lineage. I'm going to see you now and you belong to this community also."
Blaise: Is she a musician?
Leo: She’s a singer, yeah.
Blaise: Ah. And now when you—you started out, I’m talking today with Ben Sidran and his son Leo Sidran. So when you started out, how did you find your way to music? Were you always a musician?
Ben: Yeah. I don't have a memory that goes back before sitting at a piano. So I was sitting at a piano when I was five or six years old. And I was just totally taken with boogie-woogie when I was a little kid and I don't know what it was. I think it was the motion, the forward momentum of the music that got me excited. And I learned how to play it and then when I was about 13 years old, mostly self-taught up until then, I got an interesting teacher that I would see every now and then; it wasn't disciplined learning. And he showed me some harmony and some voicings and next thing you know, I was playing these little dance gigs and I was getting paid four dollars or five dollars and it just became my future by default. I never planned it, but music was really the only thing that interested me.
Blaise: How were your parents about it? How did they feel?
Ben: Indifferent. Although later on, when I got to college, I remember my mother did say to me, "It's really great that you're interested in music, but don't think that this is going to be your future. Don't think that you can make a living doing music." And she was right, of course, except the times had changed and by the time I graduated college, music was a really available and a good path.
Blaise: So who did you play with first who lifted you out of that kind of—
Leo: Yeah, how did you realize you could make money in music?
Ben: So my freshman year at the University of Wisconsin, I had a little jazz trio. And this was 1961, this goes back a long way, and what jazz was then was sort of party music, fraternity party music. I mean, it wasn't hipster music, not on campus. And so I had my little trio and we would go to these fraternities on Friday and Saturday and they had a beat-up piano and I had my little trio and we'd play and I'd make 30 bucks. It was great, right? And then, because fate has a way of introducing its fate, its face, into your fate, I met Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs on campus. And they had a little rhythm and blues band and I joined up with them and suddenly I was making 50 dollars instead of 30 dollars. So that got my attention. And then by 1965, when the Paul Butterfield Blues Band showed up, that was a revelation, and the Beatles, because these were basically young white kids who were making records and, I mean, really a light bulb went off for a lot of us like, "Hey, this is something we can do." Up until then, I don't think any of us—I mean, if you were into the blues, well, how were you, a young white kid, going to make a record? Same thing with jazz. But once the recording industry started to take off, it became a path and the line of least resistance, really.
Blaise: So who—who brought you in to play?
Ben: Oh, my first recording sessions and stuff? Well, I went in 1966—Steve Miller had moved from Madison, Wisconsin to San Francisco. And he was playing there and he would call me up and say, "Man, you've got to move to San Francisco. This scene is unbelievable." And I went out there and checked it out and I didn't think much of it, you know? I was just talking about this last night. I went to the Fillmore Auditorium in '66 and it was a big gymnasium and the sound was terrible and the music was pretty amateuristic and I didn't like it at all. And Steve said, "Come on, man, you've got to—" and I said, "No, man. I'm going to go to graduate school. I'm going to make something of my life." And I actually have a PhD in American Studies: History and Sociology, and I thought that was going to be my future. But while I was in England—I went to graduate school in England—Steve and the band came over to London to make the first Steve Miller record and at night I would go into the studio and record with them. So while I was in graduate school, I was already in the recording business in England. And when I graduated after three years with my PhD and I sent out letters to all these universities trying to get a job teaching, I got no response. So I figured, well, I'm in the studios, I'll move to L.A. And that’s what I did. And so ever since, when people say, "Well, how do you get in the record business?" I say, "Well, you have to fail at teaching."
Blaise: Or move to L.A.! There's—
Ben: But there is a kernel of truth there, that it’s in the art of recovery that a career is made. Because it never goes straight; the path is never straight. And it's how you respond to the bumps in the road and the disappointments that determine your career, actually.
Blaise: I’m talking with Ben Sidran and Leo Sidran. And let’s listen to a little bit of music. Here’s Ben Sidran and he’s going to talk first and then play a tune for us on Jazz PHX.
[7:53 - 8:16] [Audio: Spoken word intro – Ben Sidran explains the origins of "Times Gettin' Tougher Than Tough" over a soft, bluesy bass line]
[8:16 - 10:04] [Music: "Times Gettin' Tougher Than Tough" – Gritty, slow-tempo blues with expressive piano and soulful vocals]
Blaise: That’s Ben Sidran, "Times Gettin' Tougher Than Tough," Leo Sidran joining him, and Max Darman on the base on Jazz PHX. I’m Blaise Lantana and today I’m talking with Ben Sidran; he’s here with his son Leo. Well, I have some blues, more blues coming up, "Blue’s the Bottom Line" and how—how did you get so involved in the blues? Were your parents listening to this music? I mean, you’re from the Midwest, but near Chicago, Detroit—where were you?
Ben: Yeah, near Chicago. I was actually born in Chicago and then grew up in Wisconsin, just—
Blaise: I don’t think of Wisconsin as a blues capital.
Ben: It sure isn't. But you know, the Midwest was always on the touring route. Not that I ever got to see anybody, but I mean, jazz, blues, it was really underground. It was inside. Nobody listened to what I was listening to as a kid.
Blaise: So were your parents listening to it? How—
Leo: Yeah, but it is interesting though. I mean, later on, we discovered all these liner notes that his father had written. Sarah Vaughan records and I mean, his father was a jazz fan, maybe not a blues fan, but there must have been some kind of—
Ben: Well, Mercury Records was located in Chicago and my father was a writer, so he would write liner notes for—it was a side label called MRC, which is a good jazz label. He had a lot of records. He certainly had a lot of swing records.
Blaise: Now did you listen to those? Did you pull them out or was it like, "Oh, those are Dad’s records, I don't want to listen to them"?
Ben: You know, the first record that I'm aware of was Jimmy Forrest's "Night Train." And I heard this record, I must have been six years old, and it totally, I guess the only way to describe it is freaked me out. I started running around the room and I broke stuff. I didn't know what was happening and my father got really mad at me because I broke his copy of Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall and he was furious. But boogie-woogie as I say, I loved that from the time I was a young kid. And that's the blues, I mean, that's really what it is. And the blues is something you can easily get your head around when you're a kid; there's only a few chord changes and it’s really about rhythm and I always thought of myself as kind of a rhythm piano player. But the moment for me was Ray Charles' "What’d I Say." I was 14 or 15 and that song came on the radio and everybody—everybody flipped out for that. And he was playing this little Wurlitzer electric piano, we had no idea what that sound was. It was exotic. But I—you know, I like the blues as a—as a feeling more than as a form. And of course once I got into the band with Steve and Boz, blues is all we played; we played Jimmy Reed, T-Bone Walker, and that’s when I really got baptized in the blues.
Blaise: I’m talking with Ben Sidran and Leo Sidran; they’re here today. I’m Blaise Lantana, I’m glad you found us here at KJZZ 91.5 HD 2 Phoenix, and you can also listen online at JazzPHX.org. Well, let’s listen to "Blue’s the Bottom Line" on KJZZ.
[12:35 - 14:14] [Music: "Blue’s the Bottom Line" – Cool, medium-tempo vocal blues anchored by an infectious piano riff and steady drums]
[14:14 - 15:58] [Music: "Tuxedo Junction" – Swing-style instrumental jazz with melodic piano lines and syncopated drumming, brisk tempo]
Blaise: That’s Ben Sidran at the piano with "Tuxedo Junction" on Jazz PHX. And that’s from the album Swing State. And before that we heard Ben Sidran doing "Blue’s the Bottom Line" from the album Who’s the Old Guy Now? Both of those—both of those tunes recorded with his son Leo on the drums. How did you put those two different albums together? You have one, Swing State, Who's the Old Guy Now?
Leo: Yeah, Who's the Old Guy Now? is the one I think we did first and I think that that was actually in the late summer of 2020. I live in New York, Ben lives in half the time in Wisconsin, which is where he's really been based out of for his whole career. And I finally figured out how to get home to see him. I drove from New York to Madison and we spent a month hanging out with my family, my wife and daughter and my mom, and we decided let's go into the studio together and we can do that, we're bubbled up together. You know, I mean, this was at the time when you were really being still very careful about who you would go into an enclosed space with and we had been talking for years about doing basically a duo record, something that would just be the two of us. And this was the opportunity to just go into the studio with our friend in Madison, the engineer Mark, and we just spent a few days grabbing at ideas that we had been talking about for years. "Who's the Old Guy Now?" was a song idea that we had been playing with, you had "Blue's the Bottom Line" as a song idea, we found a song that we had written together years earlier when I was in high school called "Too Many People" that we revisited. And we sort of put this thing together very quickly and intuitively and it was a beautiful process, in part because we had no expectations for it other than we're going to go in and just have fun in the studio together and play it ourselves. It came together very quickly and we put it out very quickly and kind of naturally. I love that you chose to play that. And a year later, we're still in the COVID times, we were starting to go out and play gigs and kind of show ourselves in public again and we got together with our friend the bass player Billy Peterson, who’s playing with us tonight at MIM. He's been Ben's bass player for years since the '70s and Billy came to Madison and we went into that same studio again with no expectations, just for the love of playing together after having not played together for a year. And Ben pulled out all these tunes from the '30s, "Tuxedo Junction" and "Laura" and, you know, some old blues tunes and that he had been working on the piano all year while he was sitting at home. And that’s an album also that came together in maybe a day and it’s really I think for both of us one of our favorite things that we've ever done together. It’s his only instrumental, non-vocal album that he ever made and it just captures, like those great classic jazz records that we love, it just captures a moment. You just feel this was a moment in time that you’re hearing.
Blaise: Well, I think we had a lot of time to practice during COVID. You know, because we weren't going out, I don't know, to get a pizza or just go down the street and see a friend. There was so much time home. So you could really get those ideas circling in your head and then to have each other together, that’s really exciting that you were able to do that. Because New York was pretty crazy during COVID.
Leo: No, you're right and it’s really true. I hadn't thought about it, but it was a little bit of a return to that space, mental space, to just kind of work it out and think about things. And so right, when we got together, whether it was in 2020 to make our little record together, our Who's the Old Guy Now? record, or the following year, yeah, you had obviously spent a year playing those tunes and thinking about just playing piano.
Ben: Also, you know, the COVID period for me was a time of real feeling and emotion, you know? You had to settle into yourself and it brought a lot of stuff forward and I think for me it brought that music that I grew up on forward. I mean, "Tuxedo Junction" I must have heard that record when I was a teenager and same thing with "Laura." Oh my gosh, I played "Laura" when I was 14 in a dance band. And so I think going back was just a natural path. And then so as Leo said, it was the only instrumental record I've ever made. I came online at a time when you had to be a singer-songwriter. And the reason I got my first record contract was because the guy who signed me said, "And you will sing." And I said, "Okay, I will sing."
Blaise: Did you think you were a singer?
Ben: No, I’d never sung before, actually.
Blaise: But you wrote.
Ben: But I wrote. And the first time I actually heard my singing voice was at Capitol Studio A in front of the Frank Sinatra microphone. It totally scared me to death. But I had a good friend, he's a record producer, Tommy LiPuma, who produced George Benson, a lot of people. And he had told me at one point, right before we went into the studio, "Man, you should make an instrumental record. Why don't you—why don't you do that? People would dig it." And I said, "Ah, people don't want to hear me play. There are so many piano players out there." But it turned out that it was a lot of fun, it put me back in touch with the music that I grew up on and it got played like crazy. That record was played everywhere and is still played; if you go to Spotify, Swing State is—got as much—
Blaise: Well, the thing is that jazz stations in general, unless it's a vocal station, in general, a jazz station is playing four to one instrumental to vocal. And we receive records four to one vocal to instrumental. Every female singer, lately though we've been getting a lot of male singers, but—
Leo: Well, that’s good. Well, you know the old joke, how many female singers does it take to sing "My Funny Valentine"? All of them! Apparently all of them. Or "Over the Rainbow," that’s another one.
Blaise: But I want to hear this tune coming up, "Take a Little Hit." Tell me about this tune.
Leo: Yeah, tell her about this tune, Ben.
Ben: I have to tell her? Oh. Well, you know, I'm a great fan of Mose Allison. And his songs always are topical and have humor in them and I don't know, I mean, being a college student in the '60s, of course we were smoking pot. Everybody was smoking pot. And I don't know what prompted me to write a song about it, but it was like in that tradition, kind of a hipster tradition that I wrote it. And it was basically built on how many different ways can you say smoke a joint without saying it? "Take a hit," "take a pull," "take a poke," "take a—"
Leo: "Take a spank," you said.
Ben: "Take a spank before you hit the tank." What was the other one? Oh, "take a stroll before you hit the pole." It was just fun. And like so many other songs that I've always admired, whether they’re Mose's songs or Frishberg songs or Dearie songs, it was fun to play with the language and to swing, to straight-up swing.
Blaise: Yeah. And then we’re going to hear "Old Wine, New Bottle." So tell me about this one.
Leo: That’s another one that came from the Who's the Old Guy Now? sessions. Yeah, so these were exactly that, you know? Ben comes from this kind of Mose Allison school of songwriting that then I also sort of come from. And a lot of times, the way you work is you kind of work backwards into a concept or a line. So you have a line like "Old Wine, New Bottle," well, what are we talking about and how are we going to do it? And so it came together very quickly, I think, and again, I mean my memory is that if we didn't have video of it, you know, there's video on YouTube, you can see these songs being made, if we didn't have video I wouldn't even know how to describe the process of making this because it happened so fast and so naturally and so fun. But yeah, "Old Wine, New Bottle," you know, that's a—was that a Cannonball phrase or something?
Ben: Something. Yeah, that goes back, that’s one of those expressions that we say.
Blaise: But I thought he was talking about you.
Leo: Oh, I like that! I'm the old—well, it’s funny that when I said to you I belong to the same tradition that he does, so absolutely, "Old Wine, New Bottle."
Blaise: Well, let’s listen to some jazz. Here’s Ben Sidran, he’s working with his son Leo on the drums.
[22:04 - 23:51] [Music: "Take a Little Hit" – Jazzy, mid-tempo track with rhythmic piano, smooth drumming, and playful vocals]
[23:51 - 25:40] [Music: "Old Wine, New Bottle" – Upbeat, rhythmic jazz piece featuring spirited piano work and crisp percussion]
[25:40 - 27:16] [Music: "The Art of Conversation" – Melodic, gentle jazz duet featuring piano, guitar, and conversational woodwind interplay]
Blaise: "Art of Conversation," that’s Leo Sidran on Jazz PHX, your modern jazz connection. This is KJZZ 91.5 HD 2 Phoenix, and I’m glad you’re here with me, glad you found us. You can also listen online at JazzPHX.org. And here with me in the studio, I have Ben Sidran and his son Leo Sidran. Tell me about this tune, "The Art of Conversation."
Leo: Well, as I’m thinking about it, there’s so many things that come to mind. I wrote it after I had just met Kat Edmonson, the singer who sings with me on the record. I spent an afternoon talking with her and when we were done hanging out—because I actually also do interviews, I interview people for a podcast that I have and so I had gotten together with her to do what we're doing here, but me asking her the questions. And after she left, I picked up the guitar right away and just wrote the song, I was just so inspired by our talk and by her, and I thought maybe it would be something she would want to sing one day. And then COVID came on and we all kind of disappeared and retreated to our corners for a year and I made a record during that period where I was, you know, like we all were, sending stuff out to people to have them record at home and send it back to me. And at the last minute, Kat wrote to me, and I had sent her a demo of the song and she said, "If it's not too late, I'd love to sing this with you." And so right as the album was being finished, I mean almost like we missed the window, she sang her part on it and we put it out. And it’s, you know, it turned out to be such a lucky thing that she joined me because the song is about conversation and I love the idea of a duet, you know, a song about conversation that's a duet. At the end of that song, you hear the trumpet and the saxophone kind of in a conversation with each other. And I named my album The Art of Conversation, which I realized looking back on it also was the follow-up album that I made after doing this tribute to Michael Franks. And without really having known it at the time, I think I was also thinking about The Art of Tea, which was the Michael Franks album that was sort of my favorite Michael Franks album, and so I like that kind of construction of "The Art of" something. Mine was going to be The Art of Conversation.
Blaise: Well, we’re going to listen to that album a little bit later on. But coming up, we're going to hear "Swing State." And Ben, you know, you've done so many things. You've been a teacher, you've been a musician. How do you fit all that in? How do you manage to focus on one or the other?
Ben: To me, it's all the same. It really is. It feels the same. If I'm playing piano, it feels like if I'm writing, if I'm sitting at a computer; my mind is just working, working, working all the time and I access it different ways. But for me, it's all—it’s always been about jazz and the feeling. I mean, I was captured as a young person and it's always been my North Star and my driving wheel. And so whether I'm writing or teaching or playing a gig, Swing State is a good example, it just feels good to me. It's sort of who I am.
Blaise: Right. Ben Sidran and Leo Sidran together. Thanks for coming by KJZZ and talking with me today. I really appreciate it.
Leo: Thank you. This has been so great.
Blaise: Let’s listen to "Swing State" on Jazz PHX.
[30:04 - 31:40] [Music: "Swing State" – Energetic, up-tempo instrumental swing with melodic piano solos and a steady rhythm section]