The Third Story with Leo Sidran

Four years and 100 episodes later, I'm still going. What a trip. This week, I take a moment to reflect with one of the most surprising and flattering guest hosts I've ever had: my wife, Amanda.

I write this in from pitch black hotel room in Palm Springs. Last night on the plane I made a list of all my guests so far (hopefully I haven't overlooked anyone too serious), and organized them into category. The categories are a bit one dimensional, especially considering that my focus is often on the kinds of people who defy category. How does one place an incredible musician who is also an incredible composer, and a visionary producer? By what name do we call a polymath singer, arranger and multi instrumentalist? What about an actor turned Zen Buddhist priest turned blues musician? Or a bebop piano player who also runs two clubs?

So please forgive me if you disagree with where I've placed your favorite saxophone player or engineer. Overall when I look at this list, I think my taste is generally pretty clear. I've been so fortunate to talk with people who make things I love, some of whom have influenced me, some who I call friends, some who are both.

Moving forward what do I hope for? More. Much more. The rest of 2018 is shaping up to be an eclectic and very exciting batch of new conversations with musicians, writers, producers, and thinkers. And I look forward to continuing to push the edges of the format whenever I can.

But in the spirit of celebration, today is about looking back. Thank you for joining me on this journey.

Singers and songwriters: Nadia Ackerman Jonatha Brooke Alex Cuba Jorge Drexler Duchess Kurt Elling Falu Alan Hampton Jesse Harris Michael Hearst Jascha Hoffman Greg Holden Theo Katzman Jo Lawry Adam Levy Madeleine Peyroux Morgan James Janis Siegel Becca Stevens Sachal Vasandani Pat MAcDonald Noa Leah Siegel Adam Schatz / Landlady

Bass players: Alexis Cuadrado Adam Dorn Matt Geraghty Peter Giron Jeff Hamann Will Lee Billy Peterson Paul Peterson Michael Thurber

Drummers: Louis Cato Liberty Devitto Steve Gadd David Garibaldi Dave King Bill Stewart

Guitarists: Doug Wamble Steve Khan Charlie Hunter Jon Madof Gabriela Quintero

Keyboard Players: Jon Batiste George Colligan Mark Davis Larry Goldings Monte Moir Ricky Peterson

Various: Settling the Underscore - on music in advertising Should I move to Nashville What is music therapy

Arrangers: Jacob Collier Gil Goldstein Rob Mounsey

Producers: Michael Leonhart Tommy LiPuma Matt Pierson Jack Stratton Creed Taylor Butch Vig

Engineers: James Farber Ryan Hewitt Al Schmitt

Music Presenters: Michael Dorf Dave Jemilo George Wein Spike Wilner

Other Instrumentalists: John Ellis Tatum Greenblatt Ryan Keberle Ze Luis Howard Levy Bob Rockwell John Scrapper Sneider Ben Wendel Irv Williams

Entrepreneurs and technologists: Ryan Gruss Peter Koechley Benji Rogers Ralph Simon Gabriel Stulman

Writers, actors, directors, literary people: Peter Coyote Andre DeShields Michael Feldman Laura Garcia Lorca Ari Herstand Clifford Irving Daniel Levitin Ratso Sloman Emma Straub Peter Straub Marc Webb

With Ben Sidran: The election of 2016 The Mobtown Tour Remembering Tommy LiPuma Newport Jazz festival 2015 Welcome to Copenhagen What happened in Paris

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To call Larry "Ratso" Sloman a writer is not at all inaccurate - he is a writer. But he's so much more. Sloman perfected the art of hanging out and he turned that art into a career. Here he talks about how studying sociology influenced his thinking and gave him a way to be inside the revolution and outside at the same time.

Allen Ginsberg, The Fugs, Abbie Hoffman, Al Goldstein (Screw Magazine), Kinky Friedman, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, John Cale, Rolling Stone Magazine, Howard Stern, Anthony Kiedis, High Times Magazine… they all make prominent appearances in our conversation.

On fashion: "Not to boast but I always had a good sense of unique fashion. I mean I was wearing rabbinical coats way before Gaultier was doing them."

On writing: "It's like building a house. You have to have a great foundation. Have a great beginning and great ending. You can get away with a lot of sh$t in the middle."

On celebrity: "They don't want someone to put them on a pedestal."

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Singer Achinoam Nini (Noa) and guitarist Gil Dor on their nearly 30 year long creative partnership, how popular culture has developed in Israel, how they handle the responsibility of their success in such a politicized and charged atmosphere.

Noa and Gil shared their unique and provocative viewpoint on Israel, describing the "war between the Jewish people and the State of Israel" and explaining in beautiful terms why "language is the ultimate instrument of equal opportunity."

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Louis Cato is living proof that some people are simply given a gift. Born in Lisbon, Portugal and raised mostly in North Carolina, Louis began playing drums at age 2. By the time he started high school he was a credible drummer, bassist, guitarist, trombone and tuba player. He found his way deeper and deeper into music despite the fact that, as he says, he was "raised in a bubble". Louis didn't hear secular music until he was almost 18 years old, but the music he learned in church, and the music he played in the church with his mother gave him a deep foundation for what would quickly become a career as a "super sideman".

When he did eventually hear the music and the musicians that would inform his professional journey, he quickly understood that he had a place in that world. Soon he was playing with the likes of Marcus Miller, John Scofield, Q-Tip, Snarky Puppy, Jon Batiste, and Bobby McFerrin.

Here he talks about the difference between making music in church and playing secular music, what it means to "learn what you already know" and how surviving a terrible tour-bus accident changed his outlook on life and music.

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Liberty Devitto says he was lucky to be the right age when The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. He learned to play drums by listening to Ringo Starr's parts and playing along to records. Why the drums? "Because they didn't make Prozac back then."

Still, Liberty says he "likes music better than drums". Maybe that's why he's often called a song drummer. In the recording studio, he's much more likely to be reading the lyrics than the sheet music. Devitto played with Billy Joel for nearly 30 years, played on all the big records and hits, and toured the world countless times. His sound, style and feel are iconic.

Then, at age 50, Liberty was faced with a new reality. Here we talk about the journey from restless funny kid to veteran hit maker, and what makes him a "New York style drummer". And we tackle the important questions, like do we choose to be musicians because we're nuts, or does becoming a musician makes us nuts?

The episode features an additional bonus intro conversation with Michael Sackler-Berner, who plays in The Slim Kings with Liberty, and who helped to arrange the interview.

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Guitarist, bandleader, and label owner Jon Madof talks about how music and spirituality are related, what it means to create your own kind of authenticity, the difference between a job and a mission, and whether or not an artist's work can be separated from their personal behavior.

Jon's band, Zion80 released their most recent album on Jon's newly formed Chant Records label, which he launched in late 2017. What does it mean to create a record label in today's musical universe?

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Singer, songwriter, and illustrator Nadia Ackerman's journey started in Australia. But early on, she knew she was leaving, and she was pretty sure America was the destination. Although she was already a jazz singer by the age of 20, it wasn't so much the scene in New York that called to her at first so much as it was the American TV shows she loved, like The Brady Bunch.

But after spending a summer in New York, she knew there was no going home. What she didn't realize is that she had brought a dark part of her past with her on the journey, and it wasn't until years later that she came to terms what had sent her running in the first place.

Here she shares her story, through music, becoming a songwriter, then an illustrator, a shop owner and brand developer, and ultimately confronting the abuse that she suffered as a child in Australia (and that she had completely blocked for most of her life, until it was impossible to avoid any longer).

Visit www.third-story.com for everything you want to know about the podcast and then when you still need to know more, go to patreon.com/thirdstorypodcast.

In this, the second of a two part Best of 2017 series, fragments of various episodes are strung together in order to tease out the big ideas, the underlying themes, and the tiny obsessions that have been propelling the podcast all year.

Best of 2017 Part 1 looked at community and how community informs creative work. This second part looks at the more interior questions of process, identity and desire. And it explores the idea of the arts as political protest, and the potential disruptive power of creative expression.

Featuring interviews with Peter Straub, Theo Katzman, Jonatha Brooke, Leah Siegel, Ben Sidran & Tommy LiPuma, Laura Garcia Lorca, Alexis Cuadrado, Ryan Keberle, Duchess Trio, Morgan James, John "Scrapper" Sneider, and Ryan Hewitt.

As a special treat, former Third Story interviewee and guest host Michael Thurber joins as co-host.

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I think we can all agree that 2017 was an unusual year. It was intense, confusing, emotional. A little less than a year ago, as I decided to resume another "season" of episodes, I was determined to focus on community and on positivity through art and creative expression.

At least, that's what I told myself, and it's also what I told you. In the introduction to the first episode of 2017, an interview with jazz club owner and musician Spike Wilner, I said "I want to look at the role of community in supporting individual voices and in contextualizing those voices."

As the year quickly comes to an end, I decided to look back at a year's worth of episodes to see if I delivered on that promise, and to figure out what were the big questions and the major themes that emerged. With the benefit of even just a little bit of hindsight, I can see that indeed the theme of community informed the whole journey.

Featuring Spike Wilner, Michael Dorf, Adam Schatz, Dave Jemilo, Ben Wendel, George Colligan, Irv Williams, Mark Davis, Jeff Hamann, Andrew Crocker, Peter Giron, Billy Peterson, Benji Rogers, Ralph Simon, Ryan Gruss, David Garibaldi, Jack Stratton.

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Clifford Irving was a great writer, and a great character. Although he published 20 novels, he was probably best known for a hoax "autobiography" allegedly written as told to Irving by billionaire recluse Howard Hughes. By the time I met Clifford, he was a gentle old man. We talked during the winter of 2016 about his life, his career, and his general world view. Clifford passed away on December 19. This episode was originally posted in 2016. www.third-story.com