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

You still can’t beat live jazz. Accordingly, this is as close as you can get to the way the Madison-based jazz singer-songwriter-pianist lives through his playing. Sidran has dedicated his career to “demystifying the world of jazz,” as an artist/author/public intellectual. “Jazz musicians are just like the rest of us, only more so,” he has written. Those last three little words gleam pearls of wisdom. You might say, as of existential necessity, we all improvise through life. But jazzers raised improv to an art form, becoming guideposts of adventure, and lighthouses to the shore.

Sometimes sirens of safety on the shore: “When the band shows up the mob becomes a parade,” his liner note says with a pointed sense of timely relevance. That’s why, still living and live at 82 in a favorite French nightclub, Sidran remains so vital and significant to hear.  As a singer-philosopher he can bat around metaphors and tropes like a master tennis champion, with a sweet swing and follow-through in his delivery. “You Got to Picture Him Happy” contemplates the long-suffering Sisyphus legend, “It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it/ There’s just the rock and that hill and that godawful sun.” In other words, you can’t give up, but strive for some style — beauty is truth? — to give power back to yourself, and others.

Happy might have a chance, but there’s nothing Pollyanna about this man. It wouldn’t be a Sidran session without a nod to his foremost influence, Mose Allison, whose “Ever Since the World Ended” contemplates The Apocalypse with tender que sera. “Ever since the world ended/ things that seemed so splendid/ don’t seem to matter anymore/ it’s just as well the world ended/ ’cause it wasn’t working anymore.”

Here’s a still from a YouTube video of Ben Sidran performing “I Might Be Wrong” from his latest album “Are We There Yet?” YouTube

Ask yourself, how true does that lyric ring?

Among his best current co-sharers is post-Coltrane tenor saxophonist Rick Margitza who solos with a sonic translator’s synchronicity with Sidran’s style. And Sidran can still play the piano like a prowling panther, perfectly befitting his funky hard-bop roots. His singing is suave and world-weary. He’s still the quintessential hipster. But not hipper than thou, just heavily laced with wry. “I’m tired of being so hip/ It’s like waiting for a ship/ that never comes in.” We’re lucky to have him still manning the lighthouse.

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This review was originally published in The Shepherd Express: https://shepherdexpress.com/music/album-reviews/are-we-there-yet-live-at-the-sunside-ben-sidran/