He is a jazz pianist, organist, singer-songwriter, producer and author born in Chicago, Illinois and moving to Racine, Wisconsin, when he was young.
He studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and after teaming up with Boz Scaggs and Steve Miller he became a member of The Ardells. After graduating he moved to England to take a Masters degree in American Studies at the University of Sussex. While there he re-met up with Steve Miller again and performed on the album Children of the Future, which was recorded in London.
He became a session musician and recorded with artists that included Peter Frampton, The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton and after returning to the United States he became a recording artist and producer in Los Angeles. He decided to return to Wisconsin in 1970 and has remained there ever since.
Throughout his career he has worked with artists such as Van Morrison, Rickie Lee Jones and David Sanborn as a producer or musician.
As a songwriter he saw success with the hit “Space Cowboy”, which he wrote with Steve Miller, as a composer he wrote the scores for the documentary entitled With All Deliberate Speed and the movie Hoop Dreams, and as an author he has written the book Black Talk which accompanies a box set of 24 CDs that contains over 60 jazz guests that include Miles Davis and Art Blakey, who appeared on his radio show Sidran on Record. He is host of the NPR series Jazz Alive and VH-1’s New Visions, which won the Ace Award for Best New Music Series.
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