Ben Sidran at the North Street Cabaret

Ben Sidran has been a major force in the modern day history of jazz and popular music, having played keyboards with or produced such artists as Van Morrison, Diana Ross, Michael Franks, Rickie Lee Jones, Mose Allison and Steve Miller.

A jazz pianist of international renown, lyricist of a rock classic, award-winning national broadcaster, record and video producer, scholar, author, journalist, and father to a second-generation musical prodigy, Sidran makes your average Renaissance man look like a slacker.

Born in Chicago in 1943—his father was a friend of Saul Bellow’s—Sidran was raised in the industrial lakeshore city of Racine, Wisconsin, going up to Madison to play keyboards at frat-house parties while still a teenager in 1960. The next year he was enrolled at the university, playing dates on campus and around town. He soon joined the Ardells, a Southern comfort party band led by frat boy singer Steve Miller and his friend Boz Scaggs. But when Miller and Scaggs went west to become stars, Sidran stayed to complete his degree in English lit.

After graduating from the UW, Sidran moved to England to pursue a degree in American Studies at the University of Sussex, in Brighton. But when the Steve Miller Band came to England the following year to record with the legendary British engineer Glyn Johns, Sidran found himself back on the two-track life of academia and music.

It started with his haunting harpsichord break on Scaggs’ “Baby’s Calling Me Home” for the Miller band’s debut album, “Children of the Future.” A little later on, Ben would pen the lyrics for Miller’s “Space Cowboy,” earning a place in rock history (and enough royalties to pay for his graduate degrees).

While still pursuing his studies, Sidran also developed a relationship with Johns, often doing session work at Olympic Studios with musicians like Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones. In 1969, Johns produced Sidran’s demo tape, featuring Charlie Watts, Peter Frampton and others.

Then, thanks to an introduction from Johns, Sidran soon had his own record deal on Capitol Records. Feel Your Groove, a jazz/rock hybrid, featured Blue Mitchell on trumpet (the first of five such engagements), guitarists Scaggs and Ed Davis and Jim Keltner on drums.

Recognizing Ben’s skills on both sides of the studio, Capitol offered him a job as staff producer. But because his wife Judy was unhappy in the isolated haze of the Hollywood hills, Sidran did the unthinkable and walked away from LA in the summer of ‘71, returning to Madison just as “Feel Your Groove” was released and Black Talk was published (a set of circumstances which did not provoke the label into excessive promotional activity). Taking up the Hammond B3 residency at a local club, Sidran soon found another life-long musical partner when James Brown played in town and his drummer, Clyde Stubblefield, stayed behind.

It wasn’t long before another national label came calling – Blue Thumb Records, which released Ben’s I Lead a Life in 1972, quickly followed by Puttin’ In Time on Planet Earth (1973) and Don’t Let Go, (1974).

Sidran showcased his many talents in varied fields the year he turned 30 – leading a national tour, producing Tony Williams and Paul Pena, creating and hosting a weekly television series, even returning to academia to teach “the social aesthetics of record production” at the UW.

After the demise of Blue Thumb, Sidran joined the Arista Records roster, releasing Free in America (1976), The Doctor is In (1977), A Little Kiss in the Night (1978), Live at Montreux, (1979) and, for A&M, The Cat in the Hat, (1980).

Although he developed a significant career in radio and television work during the eighties (see sidebar), he kept his hands on the keyboard, recording Get to the Point (PolyStar, 1981), Old Songs for the New Depression, (Antilles, 1982), Bop City, (Antilles, 1983), On the Cool Side, (Windham Hill, 1984), Have You Met … Barcelona (Orange Blue Productions, 1986), On the Live Side, (Windham Hill, 1986) and Too Hot to Touch, (Windham Hill 1987). His production credits that decade included Ever Since the World Ended and My Backyard for Mose Allison and Born 2B Blue for Steve Miller, with whom he also toured.

Sidran continued to click on many levels throughout the 1990s, even expanded his efforts to include starting his own label, Go Jazz Records, with partners in Japan. Early Sidran-produced Go Jazz releases included Georgie Fame’s Cool Cat Blues, and Phil Upchurch’s Whatever Happened to the Blues, featuring Mavis Staples and Chaka Kahn.

In 1993, Sidran combined his art with his soul on Life’s a Lesson, a jazz-infused collection of Jewish liturgical and folk songs, featuring singer Carole King and a host of jazz luminaries. In a five-decade career, this Go Jazz release is one of the crowning personal and artistic achievements.

The end of the century brought another emotional highlight – the release of Concert for Garcia Lorca, a tribute to the martyred Spanish poet, Federico Garcia Lorca. Recorded in the courtyard of Garcia Lorca’s home, the album earned Ben another Grammy nomination (he lost to Madonna).

Ben maintained his steady output of high-quality work, both on his own (Mr. P’s Shuffle, and Live at the Celebrity Lounge,) and with such artists as Van Morrison and Diana Ross. In 2001 he produced two more Grammy-nominated albums, Mose Chronicles (Mose Allison) and It’s Like This (Rickie Lee Jones).

Building on the Spanish influence that infused the Garcia Lorca release, in 2002 Ben wrote and produced (along with son Leo) the bi-lingual children’s CD, El Elefante, winner of the Parents’ Choice Award. That year, Ben somehow found time to return to the UW as artist-in-residence, and release his critically acclaimed memoir, Ben Sidran: A Life in the Music (Taylor).

In 2003, Ben and Leo created Nardis Music, a boutique label featuring enhanced CD’s of all original releases. Among its first releases was Ben’s own Nick’s Bump (2004). This was followed by Bumpin’ at the Sunside, recorded live in Paris (2006) and Cien Noches, recorded live in Madrid (2008). In 2010, Sidran completed Dylan Different, a tribute to the music of Bob Dylan; in 2012, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Wisconsin and published his long awaited text on the Jewish influence on American popular music, There Was a Fire: Jews, Music and the American Dream. His most recent recordings are Don’t Cry For No Hipster (April, 2013) Blue Camus (April 2015), Picture Him Happy (January, 2017), Ben There, Done That (January, 2019) Who’s The Old Guy Now (2020) and Swing State (2022).

His most recent book The Ballad of Tommy LiPuma was released on Nardis Books in 2020 and won the Independent Book Publishers award for arts biography.

Leo Sidran is a Grammy winning multi-instrumentalist musician, producer, arranger, composer, recording artist, and journalist. After playing professionally as a teen-ager with the legendary Steve Miller Band he established himself as a versatile artist at ease as band-leader (with eight solo albums in his discography) as he is producing other musicians around the world (in 2005 he co-produced the Academy Award Winning song, “Al otro lado del rio” from the film The Motorcycle Diaries for Jorge Drexler), composing film scores and music for media.  As a drummer he has performed around the world with his father, the legendary jazzman Ben Sidran. (Leo has also produced all of his father’s records for nearly 20 years.) As an engineer he has recorded projects ranging from jazz great Snarky Puppy to British duo Massive Attack. He also hosts an influential podcast for WBGO Studios called The Third Story featuring interviews with musicians, producers, and songwriters.  Leo’s most recent solo record What’s Trending (his eighth) is “all about romanticism, joy and perfectly trussed grooves as an antidote to the ambient gloom, and a wise look at today’s world, its social networks, its pandemics and the next generation” (David Koperhant, Jazz News, France).

Louka Patenaude, a veteran of the Madison music scene, is a performing guitarist, teacher, recording studio artist, songwriter and composer. As a professional teacher, his career goes back almost 20 years. He has appeared on many recordings and has toured throughout the Midwest, Europe and Pacific Asia.

While studying anthropology at UW-Madison (B.S., 2000), Patenaude studied guitar and music theory with Roger Brotherhood and jazz performance in Professor Richard Davis’s Black Music Ensemble. During this time he began teaching and performing professionally with many of Madison’s best jazz artists.  He is currently a faculty member of Madison Music Makers, which provides music instruction to low-income students.

Since 2002, he has performed on guitar with jazz artist and historian Ben Sidran and his group, including four residencies at the Cafe Central in Madrid, the Montreal Jazz Fest in 2010 and an annual summer-long performance in Madison.  He also appears on the CD releases, Nick’s Bump (2004) and Cien Noches (2008), which featured Patenaude’s composition, “A Room in the Desert.”

He has performed on stage with many notable jazz artists including Tony Monaco, Richard Davis, Bob Rockwell, Billy Peterson, Richie Cole, Gege Telesforo, Bob Malach, Manty Ellis, as well as many Madison and Milwaukee jazz musicians, including Paul Hastil, Leo Sidran, Amelia Royko, Dane Richeson, Rodrigo Villanueva, Nick Moran, Michael Brenneis, Dave Stoler, Devin Drobka, John Christensen, Dave Bayles, Jeff Hamann, Tony Barba, and many others.

As a bandleader, songwriter, and producer he released The Optimistic (2006 on Layered) and The Very Best of The Fingers (2012 on Layered). Patenaude played with the widely known reggae group, Natty Nation, with whom he toured throughout the Midwest, Japan, Guam and the Marshall Islands. His sound is also featured their releases, Reincarnation (2008), Live at the UW Terrace (2013), Suffice (2010), and their newest release, Divine Spark (2016).

His music serves as the soundtrack to the television series, Tasty Guide to a Healthy Planet by David Haldiman and Amelia Royko. As a studio guitarist, Louka’s credits include Hal Leonard Signature Licks Roy Buchanon (2014), Pat Metheny’s Bright Size Life (2015) and the Grateful Dead (2015).

In Madison, Patenaude is a sought-after guitarist. His scope includes many contemporary styles such as rock, reggae, country and Afro Latin styles.

Patenaude plays with Tony Castaneda’s award-winning Latin Jazz Band and helped to found the New Breed Jazz Jam, the longest running jazz jam session in Madison.

In 2006, he performed with the Madison Symphony Orchestra under conductor John DeMain, and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra under conductor Andrew Sewell.

In 2009 and 2012, Patenaude won Madison Area Music Awards for Best Instrumentalist in the guitarist category.