The Third Story with Leo Sidran

When Lionel Loueke was coming of age as a young guitar player in his home country of Benin in West Africa, there were no music stores of any kind. He would have had to travel to Nigeria, the next country over, just to get his hands on some new strings. So he made due with what he had, cleaning and soaking, reusing his strings and even going so far as to tie knots in them when they broke.

Loueke's story is the stuff of legend. After finally getting his hands on a guitar as a teenager, he put together enough technique and understanding to get himself to the Ivory Coast to attend music school, and then managed to get to Paris for further musical study. Eventually he went to Berklee College of Music in Boston, and then to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at UCLA in Los Angeles, now called the Herbie Hancock Institute, where he had the opportunity to study and work with luminaries like Hancock, Terence Blanchard and Wayne Shorter.

Soon he began to work with those same mentors, appearing on albums by Blanchard and Hancock. Since then, he has gone on to play with an incredible list of the most creative and influential players alive. Today he lives in Luxembourg, teaches at the Jazz Campus in Basel, Switzerland, and in non-COVID times, tours and records relentlessly.

A brief scan of his recent solo work tells the story: In 2019 he released an ambitious album aptly named The Journey — the title referring to his odyssey while also mirroring his musical development. He followed that up in 2020 with a much more intimate album called HH, featuring solo guitar performances, punctuated by vocals and vocal percussion, of Herbie Hancock compositions. And last year saw the widespread release of Close Your Eyes, originally issued only on vinyl several years ago; it's a more loosely structured blowing record of classic repertoire, in musical conversation with bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Eric Harland.

Loueke tells me that after trying as hard as possible to remove the African influences from his playing and sound more like his jazz heroes, he ultimately realized that they were all compatible, and began to reintroduce more of the sounds of his childhood into his approach. The result is a very personal, musical, and emotional sound. I think maybe that's what makes him such an appealing collaborator. His voice is so identifiable and personal, but you can feel the road that he has traveled in his playing.

In fact, he ends up telling me exactly that. "Our story is what we play," he says, "the story of somebody from the beginning to the time they play; that's what we are presenting."

We spoke recently about growing up in Benin; discovering the guitar, and eventually jazz, by way of a George Benson record; making his way out of Africa, through France, to America; finding his voice and his style; how he sees his contribution as a teacher; and much more.

This is the final in a month of encore episodes as part of a new partnership between The Third Story and WBGO Studios. In June, new episodes will drop every other week.

www.wbgo.org/studios www.third-story.com

We're back with another classic episode from the archive in honor of the new partnership between this podcast and listener supported WBGO Studios. All month I'm revisiting some of my favorite episodes from over the years, and starting in June I'll be back with all new fresh episodes.

You can find these at www.wbgo.org/studios where you will also discover their ever expanding selection of hipster content. And if you want to dig on the full Third Story archive, you can find that at www.third-story.com where we've always been.

Eric Harland thinks about time. He thinks about taking time, he thinks about giving time, and he thinks about sharing time.

He'll tell you: "Time is a joint effort. It's everybody at once. You want to talk about synergy, alliance, brotherhood and sisterhood? Just watch people getting together and having to play time. So much shows up in that. There's so much judgment, so much blame. But then you get to these points of surrender and ecstasy. Something wonderful happens because you went on this journey together. It's so revealing and it's so fulfilling."

Eric Harland is one of the most in demand jazz drummers of his generation. He has played with everybody. Betty Carter, McCoy Tyner, Joe Henderson, Michael Brecker, Terrence Blanchard, Wayne Shorter, Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Esperanza Spalding, Taylor Eigsti, Julian Lage, Robert Glasper, Joshua Redman, Dave Holland, Chris Potter, Charles Lloyd, John Mayer, and on and on and on. He has appeared on over 400 recordings, and continues to appear at the top of critics' and readers' polls. Plus he once played a solo so intense that it sent my wife to the hospital.

Here he shares his incredible story of growing up in Houston and how he came to weigh 400lbs by the time he was 16 (he eventually lost the weight in college), attending the Manhattan School of Music, becoming an ordained minister, living with singer Betty Carter ("not like that"), learning from legendary mentors, and exploring "time".

He also shares his thoughts on practice, community, natural wine, and what you can learn about a person by how they drive.

The fact that he grew up in Toronto is not necessarily crucial to understanding guitarist Matthew Stevens point of view. He's regarded to be one of "most exciting up-and-coming jazz guitarists" in his generation, in any part of the world. His songs and guitar playing are featured on albums by the likes of Christian Scott, Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, Dave Douglas, Linda Oh, Harvey Mason.

He has worked as a guitarist with producers Quincy Jones, Glen Ballard and Tony Visconti. As a producer himself, he worked on Esperanza Spalding's albums Exposure and the Grammy winning 12 Little Spells and on Terri Lyne Carrington's Grammy nominated album Waiting Game.

In addition to his solo recordings, he has also made three albums with Walter Smith III who I spoke to recently: they call the project In Common, and on each record they call together a different collection of collaborators to round out the group. The most recent In Common project came out earlier this year on Whirlwind Recordings and features Dave Holland, Terri Lyne Carrington and Kris Davis.

Matthew gets around. I think it's because he's so open, and so collaborative. He brings his personality to all his projects, but he's clearly also very sensitive and empathic. And maybe, just maybe, that has something to do with Canada.

Describing his own musical development, he speaks very affectionately and knowingly about a whole community of guitar players in and around Toronto - a school of playing that I admit, I didn't know so much about before we talked. So many of the players he named share a kind of gentle, swinging sophistication, elegance but also a little bit of grit. I think Matt has applied some of that to his playing - he's certainly not afraid of some distortion - his sound is often very gritty - but even when he rocks out, I hope he'll forgive me for saying this - there's still a kind of gentleness to it. He's a nice guy, and it shows up in the music.

We spoke recently about Canada, how the business of jazz has evolved in his lifetime, how the pandemic reoriented him both personally and musically, gear, practice, teaching, the local scenes in Toronto and Pittsburgh, and one of my favorite topics: what is production?

What do A Tribe Called Quest, David Byrne, The Roots, D'Angelo, Pat Metheny, Erykah Badu, Jason Moran, Me'Shell N'degéocello, India.Arie, J Dilla, Run DMC, and Theo Croker have in common? They all benefited from the sound of Bob Power's recording, mixing or production.

Bob has had a profound effect on the sound of Hip Hop and modern music in general. Despite the fact that he says "I learned early on from working in television that if someone notices your work, you're probably screwed," I did notice what he was doing and I think a lot of people did. He has degrees in classical composition and jazz performance, and spent his early professional years both gigging and composing music for television. He was 30 years old and living in San Francisco when he decided to move to where the action was in the music business at the time: New York.

An unexpected gig as a recording engineer for early rap sessions ended up re-orienting Bob's career. He says he thinks he was one of the few people in the recording establishment who took the new music seriously and cared enough to make it as good as possible, even though it was being made in a different way (using samples, drum machines and intuition). He tells me, "Great music is made by people who either don't care or don't understand what is 'normal' so they do something extraordinary." And he says, "In popular music, wrong has become right, and we love it."

Talking to Bob, one gets the sense that his contribution has been multi-fold. Part of it is indeed the sound that he gets. It's undeniable that his records have a sound: it's in the depth of his mixes, the way they round and present, deep and forward at the same time. They have dimension. He tells me, "Just being able to hear everything in a mix is a lifetime of study."

But the other part of what he offers in the room is his way. It's his personality. Bob is happy to talk about his technical approach, the way he thinks about recording, mixing, and mastering. But he is equally happy - maybe even more so - to talk about pop sociology, Marshall McLuhan, Malcolm Gladwell, Timothy Leary and larger cultural trends of the the last 50 years. He says, "The state of the art in electronic media, the bar is very high. So making things fluid in the creative atmosphere is the thing."

Bob teaches at NYU and it would seem that teaching and producing are related to him. He tells me, "I want my students to see that there's all different flavors of good." And he says, "A lot of artists want to show all the different things they can do. No! Show the one thing that you do that is totally yours and no one else can do, and then find every way in the world to exploit and enrich that."

We got together in his studio back in February of 2020 to talk about history, technology, fat beats, staying in your lane, and keeping things fluid.

This is the third in a month of encore episodes as part of a new partnership between The Third Story and WBGO Studios. During the month of May, you'll find another episode from The Third Story archive at wbgo.org/studios and then in June, new episodes will drop every other week.

www.wbgo.org/studioswww.third-story.com

Jason Moran is so prolific and multifaceted that any attempt to summarize his career poses a daunting challenge. Now think about what it's like preparing for a conversation with him.

He's a composer, conceptual artist, educator, and public intellectual with a critical disposition — critical in the sense of challenging the status quo, while still respecting the accomplishments of his mentors. First and foremost, he's a piano player who straddles avant-garde jazz, the blues, classical music, stride piano, and hip-hop.

In other words, he's just an incredibly thoughtful person.

Moran is interested in reframing and reassessing the relationship between music, history, and place. When we spoke for this episode of The Third Story, in the spring of 2020, he was in the midst of curating an exhibition at the Louis Armstrong House Museum. Given that fact and what was happening at the time, I was particularly interested to know how he was dealing with social distancing and isolation.

Our conversation is both a snapshot of that moment in time and a sweeping consideration of many of the larger themes in his work. Among other things, he talks here about coming up in Houston among a generation of jazz innovators; the idea of truth versus passion; promoting the "Freedom Principle"; America's unfortunate way of forgetting the past; what it means for African American musicians to move freely "from the stage to the table"; the power dynamic within choosing repertoire; what Thelonious Monk and KRS-1 have in common; what we still have to learn from Louis Armstrong; and what it means to be the "personal embodiment of your history."

This is the second in a month of encore episodes as part of a new partnership between The Third Story and WBGO Studios. During the month of May, you'll find another episode from The Third Story archive at wbgo.org/studios and then in June, new episodes will drop every other week.

https://www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story www.third-story.com

From an early age, Walter Smith III began taking music very seriously. "My first gig was playing at a McDonalds in Houston with another saxophone player. I took a solo on "Blue Bossa." It was terrible. People clapped, and I figured if I could get away with that and get applause, how could I fail?"

​Although it may appear Smith is a new voice on the scene, he is widely recognized as an adept performer, accomplished composer, and inspired educator. This spring, Smith welcomes his newest release, In Common III. The boundary pushing album features some of the most important and talked about musicians in the world - Matt Stevens, Kris Davis, Dave Holland and Terri Lyne Carrington.

​Smith has developed under the wings of many of the music's greats. Walter is/has been a member of several legendary groups (recording and/or touring) including the Roy Haynes Fountain of Youth Band, Terence Blanchard Quintet, Eric Harland's "Voyager", Bill Stewart Trio, Jason Moran's In My Mind: Monk at Town Hall, Ambrose Akinmusire Quintet, the Christian McBride "Situation", Marquis Hill "New Gospel Revisited", Gerald Clayton Quintet, Christian Scott group and the Sean Jones Quintet to name a few.

​Smith has performed all over the world participating in virtually every international festival as well as famed venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Village Vanguard, and the Kennedy Center. In addition, he has shared the stage and/or appeared on recordings with many important artists including Mulgrew Miller, Billy Childs, Joe Lovano, Herbie Hancock, Maria Schneider, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Terri Lyne Carrington, Ralph Peterson, and a host of others. To date, Walter has appeared on over 100 recordings that are released worldwide.

​Originally from Houston, TX, Smith now resides in Boston, MA and is Chair of Woodwinds at Berklee College of Music helping to prepare the next generation of young artists.

We spoke recently about his early development, the Houston sound, his thoughts on education, practice, improvisation, leadership, raising a family as a musician, meeting your heroes, and LA real estate.

www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast

Before he reigned supreme at the Grammy Awards, before he was an Oscar-winning composer (for Pixar's Soul), before he was bandleader for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and well before he'd become one of the rare jazz artists considered a household name, Jon Batiste was simply a rising star of the piano, making what he called "social music." Batiste hails from Kenner, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans. He was born into a musical family, and thrust into the mix at an early age, singing and playing drums. At around 11, he switched from drums to piano, and never looked back. Eventually he moved to New York to go to Julliard. But while he was still in New Orleans, he studied and played with Alvin Batiste, who he says taught him to "Be you, even if it's the most obtuse thing. Do that rather than imitate something else..." And that original lesson has guided him throughout his life and career. While he was still in school, Batiste started to work as a sideman for jazz artists including Abbey Lincoln, Roy Hargrove, Cassandra Wilson, and Wynton Marsalis. He learned about leadership and collaboration from all of them. And it's in this space of artistic awakening in his 20s, when he begins to assert himself fully, that we find him in this episode. Recorded in 2014, our conversation tells Jon's origin story, his early influences and experiences, his philosophy of music and of leadership. This episode also marks the beginning of a partnership between The Third Story and WBGO Studios. During the month of May, you'll find another episode from The Third Story archive each week at wbgo.org/studios and then in June, new episodes will drop every other week. www.wbgo.org/studioswww.third-story.com

Michelle Willis is either already one of your favorite singer-songwriters, or she's about to be one.

If you haven't already discovered her from her work with Snarky Puppy, Becca Stevens, or David Crosby, prepare to fall in love with her intelligent, soulful, emotive singing, writing and playing.

Her latest record, Just One Voice invites us into a world of doubt, anxiety, hope, balance and letting go—a process Michelle Willis skillfully guides us through with arresting arrangements that seem complex, but are deceptively simple—just like her subject matter. It features guest appearances by Michael McDonald, David Crosby, Gregoire Maret, Becca Stevens and Taylor Ashton, and was produced by Fab Dupont.

We spoke recently about growing up in Canada, how she thinks about her music and her career, how working extensively with David Crosby has affected her, teaching songwriting, imposter syndrome, getting the right "blend", the job of the songwriter, reading poetry, and whether or not it's okay to be comfortable.

www.third-story.com www.patreon.com www.michellewillis.ca

Nate Craig is an internationally touring comedian. He plays "Phil" in the Netflix series "Maniac" and was a cast member on TruTV's "World's Dumbest". He was recently featured on Comedy Central's "Roast Battle" and AXS Gotham Comedy Live. Nate has appearances on Comedy Central's Tosh.0 and "Mash-up", which he also wrote for. He's written for 3 seasons of "Ridiculousness" on MTV.

Nate has been featured at the Bridgetown, RIOT LA, and HBO Las Vegas Comedy Festivals, and has headlined the "Laugh Your Asheville Off" and "San Francisco Comedy and Burrito Festivals". He's been on "You Made it Weird" with Pete Holmes, has written for "A Prairie Home Companion" with Garrison Keillor, and was featured on the "Best of the Bob & Tom Radio Show". He does theater tours with Bill Burr, headlines all over the country and has multiple full length comedy albums available.

We got together recently to talk about the parallels between music and comedy, what is the "job" of a comic, how "what's funny" has changed over the last 25 years, the "contract" between audiences and comics, how he got started and what it means to be successful as a comic today.

www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.natecraig.com/

Vocalist Lauren Henderson is unusual in all the best ways. Described as "somewhere between a comforting whisper and a cogent declaration" by The New York Times, she sings with an intimate, sultry, haunting intensity. Her music might be mysterious, but she is an open book.

Raised in Marblehead, Massachusetts (birthplace of the American Navy and just down the road from Salem, MA) she attended some of the finest schools in New England. She was a varsity field hockey player at Wheaton College, and then went on to receive her MBA from Brown University. She spent much of her early life being one of the few people of color in a largely white environment.

She says her journey of discovering and celebrating her heritage has gone hand in hand with her music career. She describes it as uncovering "the layers of her diverse background in English and Spanish. Her compositions paint stories reflecting journeys imposed through the African Diaspora in connection to Henderson's Panamanian, Montserratian, and vast Caribbean roots as they interplay with her North American upbringing."

Almost immediately after meeting her for the first time in 2017, I was inspired to write the song "From The Inside Out" for her to sing, and we ended up performing it as a duo on her 2019 release Alma Oscura.

Lauren Henderson is a kind of classic character wandering through the modern world. She is incredibly poised, elegant, and hip. She's often dressed to the nines, full makeup and hair, ready for her closeup at any moment. She plays with some of the finest musicians today - notably she has worked for over a decade with pianist Sullivan Fortner.

Lauren is also a proudly independent, sharply focused business woman who produces her records, runs her own label and until recently has booked her own tours. Often I feel like she was sent here from another time - I just can't decide if it's the past or the future.

So today, we get the story. Lauren Henderson tells it to us, from the inside out.

www.third-story.com www.patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast www.laurenhendersonmusic.com