Radical Positivity In Chaotic Times: 2024 in review
It’s a pleasure to present my eighteenth annual year-in-review email.
Friends, family, colleagues, allies foreign and domestic, and assorted personages, I hope this message finds you all well. In the face of adversity, one possible antidote is to meet it with radical positivity. In that spirit, it’s a pleasure to present my eighteenth annual year-in-review email.
Peaks and valleys
2024 began with an unexpected recording project. I wrote about it in this substack post from October (in reference to the age-old question “what is production?”). My dad and I were called in to help with the the conception and production of an album of mostly jazz standards for our friend Boz Scaggs.
It’s an album that Boz has been working on for a long time, and it remains ongoing. I look forward to hearing the final product.
We spent a few glorious days at Sear Sound in New York with the masterful engineer Chris Allen, and an all-star band featuring Larry Grenadier, Herlin Riley, Bill Frisell and Emmet Cohen.
I was back at Sear Sound a few months later to help with the production on Randy Ingram’s piano trio album Aries Dance, featuring Billy Hart & Drew Gress, and recorded by another great friend, James Farber. The final product of that one is already available for you to hear. (It even got a 4.5 star review in Downbeat magazine.)
Ben Sidran’s Rainmaker, which was recorded last year in France and produced by yours truly, came out in April of this year, and we spent much of the spring and summer taking it to the people with shows across Europe, the midwest, and even Park Slope. The album, which grew out of what Ben called his “dystopian suite” turned out to be one of his most celebrated recent releases, and featured musical friends based both the US and France (including Andy Narell, Michael Leonhart, John Ellis, Rick Margitza, and Mike Mainieri).
One of the most talked about tracks on the album, “Victime de la mode” was a response to French rapper MC Solaar’s hit by the same name which itself was built on a sample of Ben’s 1972 “Hey Hey Baby”. It’s a long story and we told it in this conversation from April.
I spent a hot, September week in Madrid recording with my friend, the talented and charming singer-actress Leonor Watling along with my Groovy French Band™ and Spanish guitar master Javi Peña (who plays more like he’s from Mobile, Alabama than Madrid). We’re putting the finishing touches on the album now - we call it Leo & Leo, for Leonor and Leo. The first single will be out in early April, followed by an EP later that month, and a full album in early fall. The project was already featured in El Mundo and Vanity Fair in Spain!
Earlier in the year, my frère from another mère Max Darmon, the bass player in the Groovy French Band™ and an accomplished French singer songwriter in his own right, brought me in to help with the production of his summer single “Coup de soleil”.
I also did some production for my søster from another høster Joy Dragland’s song “Woman of a Certain Age,” which features Joy’s husband, Lage Lund on guitar. (Joy and I have been making music together since well before we knew any better. Our first album Joy and the Boy, Paradise turned 20 years old this year. )
And my papi from another mami, Michael Thurber released his brilliant album Mental Wealth which, according to him, I helped to produce. (It also features appearances from Jon Lampley and Louis Cato among others.) I am such a fan and admirer of Thurber’s as both a musician and a human being so anytime he calls me to do anything I jump at the chance.
That is how I found myself spending my final weeks of the year doing post production on an album that Michael produced for Central Synagogue, one of the largest and most musically creative Reform Jewish synagogues in the world. Michael did a brilliant job producing and working alongside Central’s accomplished musical team.
I was especially excited to work on the Central project because as a young man I watched my father produce Life’s A Lesson, an album of Hebrew liturgical music performed in a contemporary jazz style. I wrote about that project, the community and conditions that inspired it in an earlier substack post this year as well.
My dad ended up devoting much of his career to studying, performing, writing about and exploring the influence of Jews on popular American music. He even wrote a book about it called There Was A Fire. It is fair to say that he is not known as a crooner of Christmas tunes (despite so many having been written by Jewish composers).
So it came as a bit of a surprise when out of nowhere, in early September, while we were on tour in Minneapolis, my dad got a call from our longtime pal Will Lee asking if he could sing the old Bob Dorough lyric to Miles Davis’ “Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern)” as soon as possible. Will was working on a Christmas album with one of his bands, Band of Other Brothers, and had come to the urgent conclusion that they needed Ben Sidran to sing this obscure hipster Christmas song.
We went, almost immediately, into the legendary Minneapolis studio Creation Audio, where Ben had done many of his projects in the 80s and 90s - including much of Life’s A Lesson - and I recorded Ben singing the deceptively tricky vocals to “Blue Christmas”. The album, This Year At Christmas is out now.
Still talking it down
I celebrated 10 years of The Third Story podcast this year - in fact my 10th anniversary episode (and first ever Substack post) featured Will Lee, who had first appeared on episode #1 back in 2014.
I talked to some incredible people this year: Ani DiFranco, Lau Noah, Paula Cole, Ella Rae Feingold, Maria Schneider, Andrew Bird, Jesse Harris, Jose James, Riley Mulherkar, Keyon Harrold, Shabaka, Aaron Goldberg, säje, Allan Tannenbaum, Samora Pinderhughes and Jack Deboe, Lucy Kalantari, Aaron Parks, Marta Sanchez, and my father on a few occasions (most recently to process the presidential election).
Some of these names appeared on my wish list when I first started the podcast (certainly Ani DiFranco, Maria Schneider, Jesse Harris and Andrew Bird) so the year was dotted with full circle moments. And some of them represent the potential of the project to discover new voices, make new friends and find new inspiration. (Such is the case with Lau Noah, säje and Riley Mulherkar.)
As you may have noticed, many of the people I end up collaborating with start out as podcast guests, and so many podcast guests start out as musical collaborators. It’s a beautiful soup.
The Third Story, which has been made in collaboration with WBGO Studios since 2022, is also featured on All About Jazz. It has opened a few new doors to me that I hadn’t necessarily expected.
For example, as a writer of liner notes: This year I wrote notes for two duo projects featuring Larry Goldings: his Chinwag album with trumpeter John Sneider, and his duo with tap dancer Melinda Sullivan, called Big Foot - made with Pete Min for his Colorfield label.
Also, as a host of live events: This year I hosted events for WBGO’s Yamaha Artist Series, first with pianists Billy Childs & Geoffrey Keezer and then with Dan Tepfer & Miguel Zenon.
And, as a radio journalist: Telling short, structured stories, like this one about the Paco de Lucia festival that took place in New York in February, and this one about Argentine singer Roxana Amed.
Although The Third Story has created new opportunities for me, I have come to think of it as a kind of form of prayer.
I joined Substack this year, which has been a wonderful home for me to publish podcasts, as well as other writings and news.
Getting to gold (status)
There is a custom on Delta airlines in which a flight attendant approaches certain passengers and thank them for their loyalty to the airline, or congratulate them on hitting a new milestone. It’s a nice feeling!
Fortunately, I logged a lot of miles this year, so more than one flight attendant thanked me individually for my loyalty. In March I spent a lovely couple weeks touring in Europe with my French guys. We went back to some of our favorite venues in France, Belgium, England and Spain, like Dazz in Vitoria.
During that tour I also got together in Madrid with two wonderful singers, Luisa Corral and Laura Revuelta, members of Calequi y las Panteras (Luisa and Laura are “las panteras”) and we began to put together an acoustic set for guitar and three voices. I was so inspired to sing with Las Panteras that I decided to book a concert in June with them in Madrid. Hosted by Open Folk, an organization that puts on acoustic shows all over the world, my show with Las Panteras (and special guests Javier Calequi, Agustin Donati, Olivia Roosa and Jorge Drexler) was one of the highlights of my year.
That show came at the end of a few busy weeks of gigs with my dad and Billy Peterson in Denmark, England, France, Italy and Spain where we joined up with a variety of guest soloists (Bob Rockwell in Denmark, Rick Margitza & Olivier Ker Ourio in France, Bill McHenry in Spain, and our fratello from another limoncello, Gege Telesforo in Italy).
Shows with Ben in Paris were recorded and will be released as a new live album this May.
Here is a lovely interview that Ben and I did with Revista Mas Jazz in Madrid about our ongoing father-son dynamic. It’s in Spanish but I’m sure the robots can put it into English if you prompt them thoughtfully.
Ben and I also did our annual week of gigs in the midwest in early September, joined by Billy Peterson and Bill McHenry: Two nights at the North Street Cabaret in Madison (with Moses Patrou as added firepower), two nights at the Green Mill in Chicago, and two more at Crooners in Minneapolis.
While in Wisconsin, I also reunited with my old crew (Tim Whalen, Jamie Ryan and John Christensen) to play a couple of shows of my material. We played a sold out hometown show in Madison at the North Street Cabaret, and a memorably empty show at Bar Centro in Milwaukee. (We played opposite Kamala's DNC acceptance speech and frankly I was suspicious of the small handful of people who chose to listen to me rather than to stay home to watch her.)
Ben and I capped off our year of touring in Montreal, playing at the Upstairs Jazz club with bassist Ira Coleman, and performing “Victime de la mode” on the legendary Belle et bum TV show.
Throughout the year I made the rounds of New York’s finest and most exclusive singer songwriter establishments, playing monthly with my neighborhood funk brothers Jordan Scannella and Chris Stromquist at Barbes, Pete’s Candy Store, and Rockwood Music Hall, trying out new tunes and keeping my fingers warm. Pianist Danny Fox made some appearances from time to time too.
And I started to play keyboards with The Slim Kings - a soulful Brooklyn band that combines well crafted songs with great grooves. As both a drummer and a songwriter, it is an almost inexplicable joy for me to play next to drummer Liberty DeVitto, who played on every Billy Joel song you ever heard! My first show with them was earlier this month at the Triad Theater in Manhattan and more shows are being planned for early 2025.
My final show of the year was as a guest performer at the Bitter End in Manhattan as part of a fundraiser for my friend Emily Cavanagh’s fantastic A Song For You charity.
Will we survive AI?
As a visiting teacher at the Long Island High School for the Arts (LIHSA) for the second consecutive year, I found myself insisting that this next generation of composers and producers will unquestionably have to contend with AI, for better and for worse.
I think much of what I do professionally as a skilled creative laborer will probably be replaced or at least augmented by AI tools soon. Nonetheless, I still manage to get called to write music for commercials and media.
Somewhere along the way this year I squeezed out a few commercials, working often with my admired colleagues at Duotone Audio and Storefront Music.
A few spots I wrote music for this year: Moneygram (creative direction & production by Duotone Audio), Endo (duotone), Evenity (written with John Sneider & Adam Elk of Storefront Media).
If you are looking for some music for media, keep my number in your phone! There’s even a website that is full of my short compositions that can be licensed for your media needs!
And for the third year in a row, I covered for the talented Jack DeBoe as a substitute music producer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert during a week in April. I love that gig and am always excited to be invited into the world of nightly national television, even for just a week at a time. Here is a silly thing I made for the show. (Unfortunately this was not enough to change the outcome of the election.)
I’ll be back again in your headspace with another deep dive before you know it. Until then, here’s to keeping positivity and productivity alive in 2025. I’ll talk to you soon.
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I think the interview with Aaron Goldberg is another example of radical positivity. I suggest to everyone a listen, and to imagine how each of us can use our gifts, what inspires us most, to resist the current appeals to our most base instincts in America, and the current political toxicity embedded in our system, and currently led and manipulated by the Trump administration.