Are We There Yet (Live at the Sunside) Ben Sidran

• 1 Are We there Yet (Live in Paris at the Sunside - June 13, 2024) 04:23
• 2 I Might Be Wrong (Live in Paris at the Sunside - June 14, 2024) 04:13
• 3 Picture Him Happy (Live in Paris at the Sunside - June 13, 2024) 08:03
• 4 Times Gettin' Tougher (Live in Paris at the Sunside - June 14, 2024) 03:52
• 5 Don't Cry for No Hipster (Live in Paris at the Sunside - June 13, 2024) 06:22
• 6 Drop Me off in Harlem (Live in Paris at the Sunside - June 13, 2024) 04:37
• 7 Take a Little Hit (Live in Paris at the Sunside - June 13, 2024) 03:43
• 8 Thank God for the F Train (Live in Paris at the Sunside - June 14, 2024) 03:21
• 9 Ever Since the World Ended (Live in Paris at the Sunside - June 13, 2024) 05:45
• 10 Someday Baby (Live in Paris at the Sunside - June 13, 2024) 04:34
• 11 Panda (Live in Paris at the Sunside - June 13, 2024) 05:06
• 12 Victime de la mode (Live in Paris at the Sunside - June 14, 2024) 03:43
• 13 Time Waits (Live in Paris at the Sunside - June 14, 2024) 02:26
• Total Runtime 01:00:08

Info zu Are We There Yet (Live at the Sunside)

Most performing musicians will tell you that you never truly know a song until you've played it live. A song reveals itself, and the longer you play it, the more it unfolds. Elements that once felt essential may fade, while new approaches emerge.

The question, then, is: when is a song at its fullest expression? Repertoire inevitably cycles in and out of an artist’s rotation, and the trick in capturing a live album is to document the moment when songs have matured—when they are ripe.

With Ben Sidran, this presents a particular challenge because his songs are constantly evolving, shape-shifting in real-time. He is fond of the expression: "The question is not can you step in the same stream twice, but can you step in it once."

Over 55 years and 40 albums, Ben’s live repertoire has been a fluid collection of songs and stories. His performances are legendary for their mixture of swing, groove, and free-form philosophy, always infused with humor and hipster wisdom. Perhaps this is why he has been called "Jack Kerouac meets Bob Dorough" (Jazz Times), "the first existential jazz rapper" (The Times of London), and "the voice of [his] generation" (Downbeat Magazine).

Live recordings have punctuated key moments in Ben’s discography. His celebrated Live at Montreux album, recorded in the late 1970s with an all-star band, bookended his first major-label era. A decade later, On The Live Side, recorded in Minneapolis—a city where he found both an eager audience and a wellspring of musicians—showcased him as a bandleader, storyteller, and master of ceremonies.

The 1990s brought two important live albums: Live at the Celebrity Lounge (recorded in his hometown of Madison, WI and featuring friends and family, myself included) and The Concert for Garcia Lorca in Granada, Spain, where he merged history, philosophy, and swing alongside Spanish musicians.

So for Ben, where you are is as important as what you do there. For the past 25 years, he has made annual pilgrimages to Europe, finding especially receptive audiences in Spain and France. The early 2000s yielded several live recordings from these travels: Live à FIP in Paris with his working quartet, Dylan Different: Live at the New Morning with a European band, and Cien Noches, an organ record from Madrid’s Café Central. Each of these albums captures not only how he was playing at a given time but also what he was saying.

The past decade has seen a steady stream of studio albums—Don’t Cry for No Hipster (2013), Blue Camus (2014), Picture Him Happy (2017), Who’s the Old Guy Now (2020), and Rainmaker (2024). These records outline much of Ben’s worldview, but his songs find their fullest life on stage. It was time to document this chapter in a live setting.

One of our favorite rooms is the Sunside in Paris, where we first played in 1999 and have returned every year since. There’s something about the space—the blend of intellectualism and groove, the deep engagement of the Parisian audience—that brings out a unique freedom in Ben. His most recent studio album, Rainmaker, was recorded in Paris and conceived as his “French” record, so it was only natural that Paris would be the place to capture him live.

Bassist Billy Peterson has been Ben’s most regular musical companion since the early 80s, and the three of us (with myself on drums) have been a working unit since I graduated from college in 1999 and joined the family circus. Saxophonist Rick Margitza has been our “man in Paris” for nearly a decade now. The addition of younger musicians—Max Darmon on bass and Romain Bouiges on guitar—for the electric set reflects the ever-deepening connection that Ben and I share with the Parisian scene. Percussionist Moses Patrou has a rare gift—he can fit in seamlessly or disappear entirely, depending on what the moment calls for.

As for the material, songs from the Rainmaker sessions—”Are We There Yet,” “Rainmaker,” “Victime de la Mode,” “Times Getting Tougher,” “Panda,” and “Someday Baby”—sit alongside pieces from the past decade that have continued to evolve onstage, including “Don’t Cry for No Hipster,” “Take a Little Hit,” “Picture Him Happy,” “I Might Be Wrong,” and “Thank God for the F Train”. Also included is Ben’s original lyric to Ellington’s “Drop Me Off in Harlem”—formally documented here for the first time.

The songs that began in the studio are now fully revealed in their live forms, stretched and reimagined in the presence of an audience. Just as Ben has always believed that music should live in the moment, these performances capture a unique synthesis of history, spontaneity, and groove.

Are We There Yet is the culmination of two beautiful June nights on stage in Paris, a decade of new repertoire, a quarter-century of Sunside performances, and 55 years of artistic evolution.

The title of the album asks an ever more reasonable question: Are we there yet? But the mere fact of the album’s existence holds the answer. Music is not about arrival—it is about motion, conversation, and discovery. And at this moment, on this stage, we are exactly where we should be. (Leo Sidran)

Ben Sidran, piano, vocals
Leo Sidran, drums
Billy Peterson, double bass
Max Darmon, electric bass
Rick Margitza, saxophone
Romain Roussouliere, guitar
Moses Patrou, percussion

Ben Sidran
is widely recognized as the host of National Public Radio’s landmark jazz series “Jazz Alive”, which received a Peabody Award, and as the host of VH-1 television’s “New Visions” series, which received the Ace Award for best music series. A pianist, producer, singer and composer, he has recorded more than thirty solo albums, including the Grammy nominated Concert for Garcia Lorca, and produced recordings for such noted artists as 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 is the composer of the soundtrack for the acclaimed film Hoop Dreams, and scored the documentary Vietnam: Long Time Coming, which won both the Aspen Film Festival audience award and an Emmy. Sidran has authored two books on the subject of jazz, Black Talk, a cultural history of the music, and Talking Jazz, a series of conversations with inspirational musicians. He holds a PhD. in American Studies from Sussex University, Brighton, England, but has studiously avoided the academic life, preferring instead to spend his time performing, producing and writing. His latest works include the memoir, A Life in the Music and the groundbreaking text There Was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream, along with the recordings Dylan Different and Don’t Cry For No Hipster.

Dieses Album enthält kein Booklet