Name: Third Story Conversations Episode 21 - Steve Khan by Unlimited Media, Ltd.
Duration: 1 h 28 min 46 s
Description: Casual, long form interviews by Leo Sidran with musicians, artists, writers, and members of the creative class. New episodes every other Thursday. www.third-story.com

Shabaka Hutchings grew up between the UK and Barbados. He started playing clarinet as a young&nbsp;boy in Barbados and eventually moved back to England to go to music school in the early 2000s.&nbsp;  After college he began a period of working furiously on a kaleidoscopic range of projects and became an icon of the new sound of London jazz, which integrated African rhythms and modes, Caribbean and Middle easterns sounds and was largely danceable.  Shabaka himself has never fully embraced the jazz label. While the music is highly improvised, and it owes much to the American jazz tradition, his influences are very broad.  Over the course of the past decade, the majority of his touring and recorded work has been with three bands: Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming and Shabaka and the Ancestors. In these formations he displayed a fundamental approach to creative practice in different contexts spanning Afro-Caribbean fusion, London dance music club culture and the South African jazz tradition. &nbsp;  Part of his signature on the saxophone has been inspired by rappers, and his sound is often evocative of the human voice, conversational, expressive, and rhythmic.  A somewhat chance encounter with a flute maker in Japan several years ago led him to develop an interest in the Shakuhachi flute tradition, and during covid he committed himself to the flute. Last year he announced that he would be putting away his saxophone and ending all of his bands to&nbsp;dedicate himself almost exclusively to playing wooden flutes.  His latest release&nbsp;Perceive its beauty, Acknowledge its Grace&nbsp;(Impulse!) is his first full length album since making that transition. It’s more meditative, contemplative and introspective than his earlier work. But it’s still clearly Shabaka.  The album features appearances by pianist Jason Moran, drummer Nasheet Waits, harpists Brandee Younger and Charles Overton, vocalists Lianne La Havas, Moses Sumney and Saul Williams, string wizard Miguel Atwood Ferguson and percussionist Carlos Niño.  I talked to Shabaka earlier this year at Winter Jazzfest as he was embarking on a new adventure, both personally and musically. It was an absolutely fascinating conversation about his own creative development and philosophy, his new record, and why this historical moment is “showing the importance of slowing down, of patience, of contemplation.” &nbsp;      &nbsp;

271: Shabaka

In a career spanning over fifty years and thirty five records, Ben Sidran has established himself as a philosopher poet. Equally celebrated for his precise, probing writing style as he is for his improvised spoken word jazz raps, he has carved out a truly unique space for himself. The Times of London aptly described Ben as “the world’s first existential jazz rapper,” and The Chicago Sun Times once referred to him as “a renaissance man cast adrift in the modern world.” He is one of a kind. And he is, of course, also my dad.&nbsp;&nbsp; There is no one else like Ben so it’s not uncommon for his fans and followers to search his songs for meaning in times of trouble. When the world is uncertain, many find comfort in the wisdom of his words (myself included!). Some of those songs have become classics among his elite tribe of hipster devotees, like “Life’s A Lesson,” “Face Your Fears,” and “Don’t Cry For No Hipster”.&nbsp; So it was curious when, during the Covid pandemic, Ben chose to make his first ever fully instrumental record in 2022, Swing State. It was as if he had finally run out of words, at least for that moment, and he chose to let his piano tell the story that he was unable to sing about.&nbsp; But those who know Ben well understand that he’s never really out of words, so it was just a matter of time before he began to write again. And last summer he found himself back in a Parisian studio joined by a group of American and French musicians to make what would become his latest record, Rainmaker.&nbsp; In many ways Rainmaker is just another in a long line of Ben’s records - a new collection of songs written in his particular style of hipster philosophy set against a backdrop of easily digestible grooves. On the other hand, he describes the process of making it as “wrestling with the devil.” The accumulation of political, environmental and personal conditions made this particular project resonate differently for him.&nbsp; We spoke recently about the process of making Rainmaker, the stories behind the songs, his belief in the power of humor to help survive adverse situations, how Philip Roth’s retirement from writing affected him, whether or not he thinks retirement is truly possible for an artist, if this is in fact his last record, and what French rapper MC Solaar has to do with any of it.&nbsp; Ben has been featured on this podcast many times, most recently on his 80th birthday last August. On each of his birthdays going back a handful of years we have talked, as well as on various other episodes. If you have heard any of them, then you know that it is always a huge treat to have him, and in fact the episodes with him are among the most listened to and shared on the podcast.

272: Ben Sidran on Rainmaker

Paula Cole on her early success, dreaming big, her life and career, the power of “the beginner’s mind”, the distinction between being an artist and an entertainer, the feeling of being pregnant with song, speaking for those who cannot speak, navigating a life in the music business, learning from young people, and her new album,&nbsp;Lo.&nbsp;

273: Paula Cole

Ella Rae Feingold is a guitar player, composer, orchestrator, educator and content creator.  She has spent three decades devoted to the soulful side of the electric guitar, and has worked with an impressive list of artists, including Bruno Mars, Erykah Badu and Common, The Roots, Jay-Z, Janet Jackson, Alicia Keys, Jill Scott, Queen Latifah and many more. On her Instagram and TikTok she is a rhythm ambassador, focussing on the importance of groove, pocket and feel in her playing and demonstrating various techniques and traditions in rhythm guitar.  Hearing Ella play and talk about music, it’s clear that she has thought deeply about her craft for a long time. Guitarist Charlie Hunter recently referred to her as “one of the baddest, greasiest guitar players on the planet.” (Of course in this context “bad” and “greasy” are two of the highest compliments one can pay.) And yet she is also very much a new arrival.  &nbsp;Feingold has been hiding in plain sight for years - both figuratively and literally - standing in the shadow of giants, just out of the spotlight and not attracting too much attention. This may have been partly a musical disposition, but it was also a function of feeling that she was simply in the wrong body. &nbsp;Ella is transgender, and after transitioning several years ago, she began to share more of herself online including regular musical dispatches which have exposed her to a steadily growing &nbsp;audience of students, fans, followers and collaborators.  &nbsp;She describes the process of transitioning as less an act of creation and more one of excavation. We spoke recently about her personal and musical rebirth, the importance of rhythm - she tells me “I don’t want to impress anyone I just want to make people feel good,” discovering inverted tuning, orchestration, transfobia, and why she hopes to be the Mister Rogers of funk guitar.        &nbsp; &nbsp;

274: Ella Feingold

Casual, long form interviews by Leo Sidran with musicians, artists, writers, and members of the creative class. New episodes every other Thursday. www.third-story.com

Third Story Conversations Episode 21 - Steve Khan

Midwestern expat, musician, producer, composer, practitioner, schmooze artist, conversationalist. Host of the Third Story Podcast.

Third Story Conversations Episode 21 - Steve Khan

Unlimited Media, Ltd.

Related tracks