Leo Sidran
Host of The Third StoryLeo Sidran is a Grammy winning multi-instrumentalist musician, producer, arranger, composer, recording artist and podcast host based in Brooklyn, New York.
Raised around music and musicians, Sidran started writing songs professionally as a teenager when the Steve Miller Band recorded four of his songs for their 1993 Wide River album. Around the same time, he began performing regularly as a drummer with his father, renowned and multifaceted jazzman Ben Sidran.
Sidran’s seven solo albums have explored the space between pop music, jazz, Brazilian and singer songwriter genres. Jazz Magazine in France says “Leo Sidran makes pop music swing.” Jazz Times says of Leo, “Vocally he suggests an amalgam of his father Ben with a hint of Donald Fagen. His fluid laidback style is reminiscent of Bob Dorough. Musically and lyrically his compositions are smart, sharp, and sparklingly original.” His most recent album, The Art Of Conversation was released in 2021. El Pais in Spain called it a “hymn to empathy”.
In addition to his solo career he has produced or co-produced projects for artists around the world (often in the Latin music space) including the Oscar winning song “Al otro lado del rio” for Jorge Drexler (from the film The Motorcycle Diaries), the Latin Grammy winning Healer for Cuban singer Alex Cuba, Grammy Nominated Mis Americas for Argentine-American songwriter Kevin Johansen, and The Original for Clyde Stubblefield (James Brown's original funky drummer). Leo has produced all of Ben Sidran’s records for the last 15 years, most recently Swing State.
Leo’s music has been featured in hundreds of advertisements for the world’s biggest brands, and he has scored long form projects for outlets including ESPN 30 for 30, Discovery, IFC, Sundance, and PBS.
As a drummer, he has played and recorded with jazz luminaries including Phil Woods, Howard Levy, David Fathead Newman, Clark Terry, Dave Grusin, Rick Margitza, and many more. He tours regularly around the world with his father’s quartet and his love of jazz continues to inform much of his work.
Above all, Leo loves to connect with people, which is what led him to start his much heralded podcast The Third Story, featuring interviews with musicians, producers, songwriters, and others in the creative class of all ages about their personal stories and professional journeys. Although it is not specifically a jazz podcast, many of his guests have spent time exploring the space around improvisation and creation.
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To mark Keith Jarrett’s birthday, Leo Sidran revisits a rare 1980s conversation between Jarrett and his father, Ben Sidran - exploring the pianist’s deeply personal ideas about presence, improvisation, and the state of mind behind his music. -
Carmen Lundy tells Janis Siegel and Lezlie Harrison about the moment when she realized she was going to move to New York from her Florida home. -
Dida Pelled talks to Leo Sidran about her latest album I Wish You Would, her approach to tradition, identity, finding a personal voice across genres, discovering the truth about her sexuality, her singing, and the six strings she loves so much. -
Dida Pelled’s music moves between jazz, blues, and beyond — but her story is about something deeper: the freedom to become yourself. In this Art of the Story, she talks to Leo Sidran about finding her voice in a new city, and making old songs feel like now. -
Jazz, born out of the Black American experience, has evolved into a global art form that models democratic ideals through improvisation, listening, and collective creation. April 30, celebrated each year as International Jazz Day, connects musicians and communities in more than 190 countries through a shared language of expression and dialogue. -
As Miles Davis’s centennial is celebrated around the world, keyboardist and producer Jason Miles reflects on helping shape the trumpeter’s late-career sound on Tutu, Amandla, and Music from Siesta. From synthesizers and sampling to popcorn and boxing at Miles’ house, Miles shares memories of friendship, innovation, and the restless drive to keep evolving. -
A new documentary, KÖLN TRACKS, revisits the mythology surrounding The Köln Concert, Keith Jarrett’s iconic 1975 solo performance that became the best-selling solo piano album in jazz history. Through conversations with filmmaker Vincent Duceau and pianist Dan Tepfer, Leo Sidran explores how memory, limitation, and myth helped shape one of jazz’s most enduring recordings. -
On what would have been his 98th birthday, Leo Sidran remembers Johnny Griffin, the Chicago-born tenor saxophonist known as “The Little Giant.” Through Griffin’s own words, we revisit his belief that jazz was made by people who chose to feel good in spite of conditions, and how he eventually found a different rhythm of life in France. -
Singer songwriter Emily Cavanagh on how she accidentally became famous in Ireland, started her non profit Song For You, lost the use of her legs and had to relearn how to walk, and what it means to spend a career at the intersection of songs and service. -
Leo Sidran in conversation with Emily Cavanaugh. Emily is the founder of Song For You, a nonprofit organization bringing personalized songs to patients, loved ones, and frontline workers during times of crisis.
