Steve Lacy Quotes

Steve Lacy — American Musician born on July 23, 1934, died on June 04, 2004

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 of little more than a single questioning phrase, repeated several times... (wikipedia)

You can work on the saxophone alone, but ultimately you must perform with others.

When I came up, it was all about originality and collective research. There is an awful lot of imitation going on now.

I still love the whole history of jazz. The old things sound better than ever.

I think it is in collaboration that the nature of art is revealed.

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.