Every year on his birthday, my dad and I sit down for a conversation. It started when he turned 76, and with a few exceptions, we’ve done it ever since - capturing an ongoing record of where his head and heart are at that particular moment.

Over the years we’ve talked about music, memory, politics, travel, the craft of performing, and the art of living. These annual conversations have become a kind of time-lapse portrait: the same two people returning to the mic, but always a little changed.

This year, as Ben turns 82, the theme that emerges is that he is “still auditioning for the role of myself.”  We talk about what it means to keep creating, to stay curious, and to hold on to your sense of fun as the outside world speeds up and your personal world contracts. 

Ben is, as always, the consummate jazz philosopher. “History is what we make of it and what we live every day,” he tells me. “We’re all feeling pain, and you can’t deny it. [...] But the response to pain is something separate from the pain itself. And in that distance between the pain and the response to pain is where our work is.”

He shares stories from his days hosting NPR’s Jazz Alive and later Sidran on Record, explains how he came to be the first person to record Billy Joel’s “New York State Of Mind,” reflects on maintaining the outsider’s perspective, and weighs in on the latest curveball: AI-generated music. 

If you’ve been following this series of birthday talks, then this is a great addition to the canon. If this is your first one, welcome - you’re dropping into the middle of a conversation that’s been going on for years, and will, I hope, keep going for many more.

Ben’s most recent album Are We There Yet (Live at the Sunside) was released earlier this summer.

 

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