There are stories we tell ourselves. There are stories we tell our friends. There are the stories we tell strangers. There are stories we never tell.
Somewhere, in the middle of all of this, is the Third Story. The intersection between the art and the craft, the living and the deceased, the personal and the professional…The place where all of these meet is the Third Story.
The Third Story podcast features long-form interviews with musicians and members of the creative class, hosted by Leo Sidran. Their stories of discovery, loss, ambition, identity, improvisation, risk, and reward are deeply moving and compelling for all of us as we embark on our own creative journeys.
Third Story Podcast is a 2024 Jazz Journalism Association Podcast of the Year Nominee.
Third Story Podcast is a 2023 and 2025 Signal Award Winner
Check out the rest of our lineup at WBGO Studios.
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Harry Connick, Jr. joins Leo Sidran to discuss Babe: Elaboratio — A Tribute to My Mother, an ambitious new orchestral work and book devoted to his mother, Anita Livingston, who died when he was 13. Connick reflects on memory and loss, growing up as a musical prodigy in New Orleans, his formative relationships with Ellis Marsalis and James Booker, and the “dream state” of his remarkable early success. -
Grammy-winning singer, pianist and songwriter Nicole Zuraitis on The Devil I Knew, the boundaries of jazz, the long game of an independent career, and what it means to finally bake your own cake. -
Pianist Sullivan Fortner on growing up in New Orleans, nearly choosing medicine over music, and the teachers and mentors who shaped him, from Barry Harris and Fred Hersch to his years playing with Roy Hargrove; his musical and personal partnership with Cécile McLorin Salvant, his fascination with sound and experimentation, and the making of Solo Game and Leave That In There. -
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. -
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. 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. -
On his 83rd birthday, Ben Sidran revisits a 1974 DownBeat profile 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 his son Leo, he reflects on aging, ambition, practice, and the surprising persistence of a worldview formed long ago. -
Ben Wikler, author of This Is the Plan, talks to Leo Sidran about humor, organizing, civic life, and the Wisconsin values that shaped his approach to democracy. A thoughtful discussion of community, political communication, and why, as Wikler says, "democracy is exhausting until you discover solidarity." -
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. -
Saxophonist and bandleader Lakecia Benjamin has become one of the most dynamic voices in jazz. In this wide ranging conversation with Leo Sidran she recalls some of her early professional experiences, and how the mentors, heroes, setbacks and aspirations that shaped her journey continue to inform her new album, We Dream. -
To mark what would have been Miles Davis's 100th birthday, The Third Story with Leo Sidran revisits a rare 1986 conversation between Miles and Ben Sidran, recorded on the terrace of Miles’s Malibu home.
