Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy
Steve Lacy, born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York City, was a jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone. Coming to prominence in the 1950s as a progressive Dixieland musician, Lacy went on to a long and prolific career. He worked extensively in experimental jazz and to a lesser extent in free improvisation, but Lacy's music was typically melodic and tightly-structured. Lacy also became a highly distinctive composer, with compositions often built out...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth23 July 1934
CountryUnited States of America
If you're trying to invent something new, you're going to reach a lot of discouraging points, and most people give up.
There is an awful lot of what I call recreational jazz going on, where people go out and learn a particular language or style and become real sharks on somebody else's language.
Bamboo is not a weed, it's a flowering plant. Bamboo is a magnificent plant.
To me, there is spirit in a reed. It's a living thing, a weed, really, and it does contain spirit of a sort. It's really an ancient vibration.
A young pianist & composer who has demonstrated an exceptional creativity, in both his playing & his writing, as well as showing us all, his very strong commitment & motivation to aim for high musical goals. Talent like his is rare.
Before the work comes to you, you have to invent work.
A jazz musician is a combination orator, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, poet, singer, dancer, diplomat, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer, public masturbator, and general all-round good fellow.
I've performed solo for 20 years now, but I don't do much of it, because if you only play alone, you go crazy and out of tune and play foolish music.
You can work on the saxophone alone, but ultimately you must perform with others.
I've been working on the soprano saxophone for 40 years, and the possibilities are astounding. It's up to you, the only limit is the imagination.
I think it is in collaboration that the nature of art is revealed.
I heard Sidney Bechet play a Duke Ellington piece and fell in love with the soprano saxophone.
When I came up, it was all about originality and collective research. There is an awful lot of imitation going on now.
Risk is at the heart of jazz. Every note we play is a risk.