Review by
SCOTT GOTSCHALL

Ben Sidran has lived an interesting and adventurous life. As a musician, producer, composer, television and radio host, writer, sideman, husband, and father he has accomplished nearly everything an aspiring jazzer could hope for. In, Ben Sidran: A Life in the Music he recounts many of his past glories and present achievements.

Ben Sidran takes basically a chronological approach though his life and career. He begins in Wisconsin, from childhood through his college career. Then moves (both in life and in the book) to England for his Doctorate degree (his thesis eventually becomes his famous book, Black Talk.). From there he begins to live the life of a jazz musician, from tours to recording sessions, from Phil Woods to Steve Miller, from drugs to stronger, more illicit drugs. Finally, Dr. Sidran takes us through middle-age, and the maturing of a musician on the road.

Dr. Sidran's life starts in a small town in Wisconsin. His father was a writer for an advertising agency, after once having aspirations for fiction. Shared loves for him and his father were baseball and jazz. Benny Goodman was celebrated alongside Honus Wagner and Ernie Banks. Although sometimes abusive, Sidran recounts that his father was quite clearly the major influence in his life and works. He would sometimes find himself in the recording studio, talking to the band and hearing his father's voice.

Ben Sidran's childhood contained his share of youthful deviance. From stealing cars to cutting school, acting out became the norm for him and his friends. Paralleling his trouble-making, Dr. Sidran became aware suddenly during his teenage years of his Jewish heritage when kids began to pick on him. He relates the story of a good friend who betrayed him and beat him up, simply because the "cool" kids in school thought it would be fun to pick on "Jewboy". His Jewish heritage would be a second influence that he would spend most of his life trying to avoid, but eventually coming full-circle to meet head-on.

Dr. Sidran attended undergraduate and graduate school at the University of Wisconsin. It was there that he began his relationship with many of the friends and musicians that would last the rest of his life. Most notably, it was there that he met Steve Miller. Also while there, he met Prof. Harvey Goldberg, who was to have a major influence on Dr. Sidran philosophically. It was during the unrest of the sixties, and it was Prof. Goldberg who first showed him that the University did not have to be a place for theoretical knowledge only. Sidran describes him, "Harvey was an anomaly, a serious academic who preferred the company of ordinary folks to that of his colleagues, and he was one of the few teachers who anticipated the coming cultural fire storm and the role in it music would play."

Sidran's life at the University included not only preliminary work on his later jazz writings, but also laid the serious groundwork for his work as a musician. It was a hotbed of cultural and musical activity. Being so, it fostered and supported creativity and individuality. Sidran was able to begin to form his own musical identity while there (although he did not yet know it), as well as form crucial relationships with many of the musicians of the day.

From the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Sidran did his doctoral work in England. It was there that he began the thesis that would become Black Talk. Also while there, he continued to make musical and business connections. Most notable he began his career as a studio musician, working with artists as big as The Rolling Stones. A brief sabbatical away from the piano helped him to realize that much of his musical training was spent trying to sound like other people (Major influences include Mose Allison, Phil Woods, and a host of other jazz and R & B artists.). After returning to the keyboard after two years, he was able to discover his fulfillment at the instrument had to include defining his own distinctive voice. When finally receiving his doctorate degree, and still feeling dissatisfied and frustrated, his mind kept repeating, "I need something. I need something." At this point he decided his life would need to be based living the music, not studying it.

After England, he decided to move to L.A. in order to be in the center of the recording universe. He was successful there as a studio musician, and continued to make connections; even getting signed to his first record contract. Despite his growing success and popularity after hard times in Los Angeles, his wife Judy was very unhappy there. Similarly unhappy, Dr. Sidran moved back to Wisconsin to be home.

Los Angeles would be an experience that precipitated a long and arduous relationship with the record companies and music business in general. Although his heart was always in the creative process, he knew he had to make money. His talent and ease for making friends and keeping relationships strong helped him to stay a few months ahead of the bills. However, his luck with recording albums seemed contrastingly bleak. More than once, a record company went out of business just before an album was to be released (a common story I would guess for many artists of the early seventies).

Dr. Sidran became much more aware of the need to "pay the bills" after his son Leo was born in Wisconsin. He was able to start a television show on WTTW in which he helped to broadcast live performances of famous musicians. This helped to launch a long career of television and broadcast radio opportunities for Dr. Sidran. From this to a program on VH-1 to two separate jazz radio shows on NPR. Dr. Sidran was able to provide his intellectual prowess as a writer and his knowledge and love of jazz music and musicians. He quickly became one of the foremost names and recognizable faces of jazz in the late seventies and early eighties.

His relationship with Steve Miller came to a culmination in 1986 with a jazz album released under Miller's name, and then a tour with Miller as the headliner and Dr. Sidran's band providing back-up. They were on tour together off-and-on for almost three years. Unfortunately, around the same time, Miller's Greatest Hits album had been released and the fans they hoped to attract with the jazz album (older and musically knowledgeable) were replaced by a younger, teenage crowd that was just being introduced to the rock music of Miller's past. Consequently, as the tour went on and the fans were catered to, the music became simpler and less satisfying. However, Dr. Sidran's son, Leo, was able to gleam a satisfying relationship from the tour. At the ripe age of thirteen, Leo went on tour from time-to-time with the band and learned songwriting and guitar-playing from Steve Miller. This was a wonderful relationship for the young Sidran until an incident involving publishing rights for his songs on Miller's album left him jaded to some extent considering the business and, particularly, working with "Uncle Steve".

Dr. Sidran was successful throughout his career as a performer, writer, producer, and sideman. However, he was still nagged by the voice inside his head, "I need something." His satisfaction finally came later in his career through several events. Perhaps the most important was the realization of his Jewish heritage. Through a combination of local Jewish High Holiday ceremonies, his son's Bar Mitzvah, and the awareness of a lack of connection with his father, he decided his Jewish background had to be not only recognize, but brought to the forefront. From this, he released Life's a Lesson, an album containing Jewish melodies performed by Jewish jazz performers within the parameters of jazz songs. Secondly, his work on the soundtrack for the movie Hoop Dreams helped him to realize how similar the African-American culture was to his own. Finally, through concerts throughout the world and ultimately in a tribute to the poet Garcia Lorca in Spain, he underwent a revelation that music must be put in context in order to be understood; that without the right surroundings an otherwise meaningful blues solo (or Jewish prayer) went simply into the deadness of space.

Dr. Sidran's writing is tremendous. He holds our attention unabashed through his entire work. Of course, his reputation began with Black Talk, and this autobiography will only serve to increase it. His views and philosophies (presented near the end of the book) offer a unique view and retrospective look from someone who has made the entire journey. He presents a philosophy not only for jazz or music or even art, but for life. A philosophy that says context matters as much as action. Being matters as much as doing. It is perhaps a simple philosophy that is presented in a serious and educated way. He offers it to his son when Leo is having trouble getting out of bed because of depression and self-doubt while living in Spain. "If you can't get out of bed in the morning, then that is what you're working on. That is your job for the day, and it is as good as any other. Don't ever feel you're wasting time if you're living your life. That's what your time is for." . . . "Let's go have a pizza."

Dr. Sidran also presents a realistic and matter-of-fact view of life on the road. He regales us with stories about his friends and musicians, activity on the tour bus, and games on stage. His style gives us accurate views not only of personalities but of activities that most of us will never get to experience.

Similarly, the list of characters that Dr. Sidran has encountered is enormous. There must be nearly two-hundred musicians, agents, writers, critics, family, and friends recounted in this work. He describes each one with a vivid memory and such detail as to give depth to each and every one. It is mostly through these characters that his life is told.

Particularly commendable are the causes that he takes up throughout the book. As an artist coming of age in the sixties, he is concerned about some of the issues not only of the time but of the present. He relates in passionate narrative his support of N.O.R.M.L. (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) in the seventies, his opinion of the music business, of studio technology, and of the value of religion and art.

Ben Sidran presents here an ultimately informative and entertaining story of his life in music. He relates each story with depth, perspective, and when appropriate, humor. His talents as a writer combined with his experience as a musician give us a unique telling of a life well-lived. Exceptional writing from an experienced author, a unique musician, and a distinctive personality.