By MORDECAI SPECKTOR
On the phone this week from his home in Madison, Wisc., Ben Sidran discussed some of his recent and forthcoming travels.
The jazz pianist, music scholar and raconteur played a number of European dates in June: Copenhagen, London, Paris, Madrid and Rome.
I was curious about his gig in Copenhagen, at Jazzhus Montmartre. My son Max lives in the Danish capital, but I’ve never been to the storied jazz joint.
“It’s a lovely club, with a lot of history,” said Sidran, who celebrated his 81st birthday in August. “Great audience, great sound, really nice piano,” he added. “Everything you want in a jazz club.”
Sidran got to spend four days in Copenhagen, which he described as “a charming city and the people are wonderful. It’s very cool.”
Not one to let the moss grow, Sidran has a swinging new album titled Rainmaker (Bonsai Music) and will play some Midwest dates soon, as he’s been doing annually for many years. His quartet will play Crooners in Fridley on the evenings of Sept. 6 and 7.
Sidran will be backed by his longtime rhythm section: son Leo Sidran on drums and old pal Billy Peterson on contrabass. New to the lineup will be saxophonist Bill McHenry.
“Bill McHenry is an amazing saxophone player,” remarked Sidran. “He lives outside of Barcelona — he’s American. He’s been there more than 20 years; and when we go to Spain, we play with him. … He’s a wonderful player, and he mentioned that he was going to be in the States at the end of August, first part of September, so we invited him to come play on the Midwest dates.”
Sidran added that it’s “fun to play with him, obviously, and to bring a new voice to the party.”
Regarding the new album, Sidran wrote in the liner notes: “The original idea for Rainmaker was to throw a party in a Paris recording studio in honor of my 80th birthday. I saw it as a way to celebrate the survival of many things, including myself, a life without borders, and my friendship with so many musicians abroad.
“I imagined that it would be a blues record, so I began by writing some original blues songs and revisiting some of my favorite classic blues, too. But as often happens, what we discover is not necessarily what we were looking for, and in this case I found myself writing songs that felt dystopian, not all of them traditional blues forms, and not what you might imagine as ‘party music.’
“By the time we finished recording at Studio de Meudon with new and old friends from America and France, the record had found its own sound. Somewhere between tragic and celebratory, shaggy and polished, broken and healed, I guess you could say that Rainmaker really is all about surviving in the modern world.”
The “dystopian” part shows up in the song “Humanity,” where Sidran sings, “Where did we lose our humanity / Where did we go astray / Where did we lose our sanity / Where did we lose our way.”
Sidran, who wrote most of the tunes on the album, covers the Mose Allison song “Ever Since the World Ended,” another downbeat number that begins: “Ever since the world ended / I don’t go out as much / People that I once befriended / Just don’t bother to stay in touch.”
But don’t get the idea that Rainmaker is a downer. There are upbeat numbers, and the record is suffused with Sidran’s characteristic wit. If you haven’t seen him perform, you’ve missed out on some refined jazz playing and humorous storytelling. The situation of cultural lack can be remedied by showing up at Crooners Main Stage on Sept. 6.
In the way of a thumbnail bio, Sidran hosted National Public Radio’s landmark jazz series “Jazz Alive,” which received a Peabody Award. His VH-1 television New Visions series won the Ace Award for best music series.
Sidran has recorded more than 30 solo albums, including the Grammy-nominated Concert for Garcia Lorca. He has produced recordings with Van Morrison, Diana Ross, Michael Franks, Rickie Lee Jones, Mose Allison and Steve Miller (with whom he co-wrote the hit song “Space Cowboy”).
He also composed the soundtrack for the acclaimed film Hoop Dreams, and scored the Emmy-winning documentary Vietnam: Long Time Coming.
Sidran is actually a doctor of music, although he never mentions it. His doctoral thesis in American studies, from Sussex University, Brighton, England, was published as a book, Black Talk.
He’s also written an entertaining memoir, A Life in the Music, and what is arguably the definitive work on Jewish contributions to American popular music, There Was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream. His most recent volume is The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma, a biography of the late great music producer.
At Crooners, Sidran will play some of his new songs, along with old favorites.
“We just keep building out the set with new songs, even though we continue to play old songs,” he commented. “It’s like they say, if you make a new friend, you got to get rid of an old friend. That’s sort of what’s it like with music: If you get a new tune, you sort of have to take an old tune and put it aside.”
Ask about his songwriting routine, Sidran responds, “I tend to write songs when I’m fooling around on the piano — not intending to write a song. On the Rainmaker album, I was really troubled by the state of the state. And those songs really wanted to be written, in a way. It wasn’t about wanting to be clever or writing a catchy song; it was more about trying to create a little emotional snapshot of our times. The songs really came upon me. I didn’t write them so much as dug ’em out.”
Sidran and his fellow musicians will hit the road soon for Chicago, Minneapolis and Madison. He mentioned that he’s been playing the Mill City since 1972 or ’73, with gigs at the Lake Harriet Bandshell and other venues.
Playing for people is what Sidran has been doing since his teenage years, for the past 65 years.
“I love it, more and more,” he said about playing live on the bandstand. “It’s more and more interesting as I get older. You know, it’s a very physical thing to play for a couple, three hours. So, you have to stay in shape, you have to keep playing. And it’s fun, like sports can be fun, like playing basketball can be fun. You’re there with a group of compatriots and you have a common purpose, and it’s physical, and you develop all of these little tricks of the trade. It stays interesting. It doesn’t get old.”
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Ben Sidran will present Rainmaker 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 6, and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 7, at Crooners Supper Club, 6161 Hwy. 65 N.E., Fridley. For tickets, call 763-760-0062, or go to: croonersmn.com.
(American Jewish World, August 2024)
