The Third Story

Guitarist Miles Okazaki tells Leo Sidran about the making of The Monkathon, a new concert film documenting the extraordinary undertaking of performing all 66 Thelonious Monk compositions from memory in a single evening.

On pop stardom, artistic identity, and learning to let go of what happens to your work.

Sullivan Fortner tells Leo Sidran about how he seriously considered becoming a doctor, and didn't choose music until almost the last possible moment.

Leo Sidran revisits a 2023 conversation with singer Samara Joy about her experience studying at SUNY Purchase

Singer, composer, and producer Sofia Rei talks with Leo Sidran about “Folk and Futurism,” rediscovering tradition from a distance, and how her collaborators and students continue to influence the music she makes.

Ray Long reviews the latest record from singer-songwriter Jacob Jeffries (of Vulfpeck fame) entitled You Got The Right Idea

In his annual birthday conversation with his son Leo, Ben Sidran 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."

Thirty years after Where Have All the Cowboys Gone? became one of the defining songs of the 1990s, Paula Cole reflects on writing, recording and ultimately misunderstanding the success of a song that never fit neatly into a category.

Forty years ago this summer, singer songwriter Pat MacDonald released one of the defining pop songs of the 1980s: “The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades.” Today Leo Sidran considers the song’s legacy.