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Ben Sidran at 83: A Conversation Across Time

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Thomas Warburton

Today is my father Ben Sidran’s 83rd birthday, and as I do every year, I talked to him for The Third Story podcast.

These annual conversations have become a tradition, a way of tracking our relationship, and an artist, over time.

Ben is a jazz musician, producer, writer and broadcaster. He was once described by the Chicago Sun-Times as “a Renaissance man cast adrift in the modern world.”

This year, I came across a 1974 DownBeat cover story about Ben, written when he was 30 years old. So I read it back to him to see what resonated, what held up, and what had changed.

As always, the conversation moved easily from the personal to the universal.

Find the full conversation with Ben and Leo Sidran below on The Third Story podcast:

Leo Sidran is a Latin Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalist, producer, arranger and composer. Since 2014 he has hosted an influential podcast called The Third Story, featuring interviews with musicians, producers, songwriters and creators of all kinds.