At his monthly series The Tell, writer and storyteller Michael Leviton brings together performers and audiences for an evening where nothing is scripted and no lineup is announced.

At The Tell, audiences arrive without knowing who will take the stage. Each night features four storytellers and two musical performances, unfolding over two sets. The result is a dynamic and unscripted experience where stories can be funny, moving, surprising—or all three at once.

Leviton created The Tell as an alternative to more formal storytelling formats. Rather than polished, rehearsed narratives, he favors stories that are chronological, unpredictable, and rooted in real experience. As he explains, he's drawn to stories that are "wild rather than relatable," and to storytellers who embrace vulnerability over resolution.

Over the past decade, The Tell has grown into something more than a performance series. It has become a community—one where people connect, form relationships, and share experiences in a space built on honesty and curiosity.

Despite its success, Leviton resists pressure to expand or commercialize the series. For him, the goal isn't growth—it's maintaining the spirit of the experience itself.

Here he explains the philosophy behind The Tell, and what it reveals about the role of storytelling in our lives.

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www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story

When singer Janis Siegel was invited to help produce a Women's History Month event at the United Nations, everything seemed aligned—until she was told, just days before, that she would not be allowed to speak. She had been flagged for her social media posts.

Here she reflects on that moment and what it reveals about a broader cultural shift. Drawing on conversations about jazz, democracy, memory, and fear—and voices ranging from Louis Armstrong to Milan Kundera—this piece explores how authoritarianism doesn't arrive all at once, but quietly, through hesitation and self-censorship.

At a time when voices are still rising in protest, the question remains: what happens when speaking starts to feel like a risk?

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When I arrived in Palm Springs last month, a few days before the concert-lecture I was to play with my father, Ben Sidran, I found him surrounded by months of research notes, trying to wrestle his ideas into something coherent.

The performance was part of the Palm Springs International Jazz Festival during the city's annual Modernism Week, and it grew out of an earlier program we presented at Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio in Spring Green, Wisconsin. What began as a playful idea about the relationship between architecture and music gradually expanded into a deeper exploration of the natural structures that shape both.

Along the way we found ourselves diving into the harmonic series, overtones, Fibonacci sequence, and the physics of vibration, asking how these natural phenomena influence the way we hear rhythm, harmony, and beauty.

Drawing on conversations with musicians like Gil Goldstein, Howard Levy, and Jacob Collier, the episode is part personal story, part philosophical inquiry, and part behind-the-scenes look at how creative work actually gets made.

And how, in the end, even the most abstract ideas often begin the same way: with a gig.

www.third-story.com
www.wbgo.org/podcast/the-third-story
www.leosidran.substack.com/