Ben Sidran

Famous for writing Steve Miller’s hit “Space Cowboy,” Ben Sidran is most recognized for hosting NPR’s “Jazz Alive” (Peabody Award), and VH-1’s “New Visions” series (Ace Award, best music series). He has recorded 25 solo albums, including “Concert for Garcia Lorca” (Grammy Nomination), and produced recordings for Van Morrison, Diana Ross, Mose Allison, and Jon Hendricks. He composed the soundtrack for Hoop Dreams, and scored the documentary Vietnam: Long Time Coming (Aspen Film Festival audience award and an Emmy). He is the author of three books: Black Talk, Talking Jazz, and A Life in the Music. While he holds a PhD, Ben generally avoids the academic life to perform and produce. Recent recordings include Nardis Music’s release of Ben’s own “Nick’s Bump” (2003), while in 2004 Ben composed, with Leo Sidran, the score for the award winning documentary All Deliberate Speed. Ben’s most recent release is “Bumpin’ At The Sunside,” a live recording from famed Paris club, The Sunside.

MB: How long have you been performing?

BS: I started when I was a kid. My first gigs were when I was fifteen years old. I played in a little dance band when I was in high school. And then I went to playing in bands for fraternities and parties. By the time I was seventeen or eighteen, I was playing clubs.

MB: Can you tell me about the first time you were anxious or nervous while performing?

BS: Well, it was probably the first time I sat down to perform in front of an audience. I probably had this feeling of anticipation. I never had a terrible problem with stage fright, but I always had a certain amount of anxiety going into new situations, and I’ve kind of trained myself over the years so that if I do feel anxiety, I go toward it as opposed to away from it.

Like, if I’m playing with some great musicians that I’ve never played with before in front of people that I’m nervous about, I tend to lack focus and I recognize that as an emotional signal that I’m doing something that I haven’t done before in some way, and that I should pay attention.

MB: Could you elaborate more on what your specific thoughts are when that’s happening?

BS: Well, that’s changed over the years. At one point in the early seventies I wound up in Los Angeles and I was trying to make a career in recording studios. They wanted me to play like Floyd Kramer or the other piano players at the time who were cutting pop records. And I couldn’t do that. I kind of felt like . . . There’s this famous Gary Larson cartoon of an elephant sitting at a piano on stage and he’s saying to himself, “What am I doing here? I’m a flute player!” I kind of felt like that: “What am I doing here? I can’t believe I’m trying to fool these people.” I felt like I was going to get found out.

And then gradually, as I found my way and I got better at being myself and I understood the reasons why you should never not be yourself, I just accepted my shortcomings for what they are and went into it saying, “Well, they hired me, they wanted me; I’ll just give it what I’ve got.”

MB: Can you elaborate on “accepting your shortcomings”?

BS: Yeah. I think everybody starts out wanting to be their heroes, whoever they are. And you can never be your hero. And even the greatest musicians I’ve met have at some point in their careers tried to do something that they couldn’t do based on some music that they fell in love with when they were young.

I think the hardest gig I ever played was . . . it must have been fifteen years ago . . . I was on a double bill at the Blue Note in New York. I was playing opposite Horace Silver; and when I was thirteen years old Horace was my hero. That whole week I traded sets with him, and every time I sat down at the piano I would hear everything I had musically taken from him. And I was just flummoxed to play something that came only from me and that wasn’t a bad reference to him. It was really mind boggling. When I say “shortcomings,” what I mean is that we all start out trying to be our heroes and then gradually . . . I think a musician’s style comes more from what he can’t do than what he can do, in some ways.