Jazz Articles about Steve Lacy

Steve Lacy: The Holy La

by Jeff Stockton
February 20, 2004

From the first note of The Holy La, you know you’re in the hands of a master. The tone is authoritative, and lower than the high hard sound of the soprano sax we associate with the Coltrane of “My Favorite Things.” The tune is from Monk, “Shuffle Boil,” and the trio, together in one combination or another for the better part of 30 years, demonstrates their affinity for off-kilter rhythms and infallible swing. The Holy La serves as something of ...

Steve Lacy: The Holy Ia

by Dan McClenaghan
November 3, 2003

The The Holy Ia opens – fittingly, for a Steve Lacy set – with a Thelonious Monk tune, "Shuffle Boil." In the sixties, soprano saxophonist Lacy teamed with trombonist Roswell Rudd in a quartet that performed Monk tunes exclusively; and the "straight horn" man is still one of the premier interpreters of the offbeat but supremely logical sounds from the pen of Monk.Lacy, rooted in Dixieland and influenced by the music of Sidney Bechet, stuck with the soprano ...

Steve Lacy: Straight from the Horn

by Andrey Henkin
October 28, 2003

“I wanted to come back. You can't stay away forever. I'm from here, I'm from New York and it was time to come home." Soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, whose career began inauspiciously in 1954 on an instrument which would lose its main progenitor in Sidney Bechet five years later, made this statement recently during an interview with AllAboutJazz-New York. The 69-year-old Lacy, neé Lackritz, has removed the ex- from ex-pat, after close to 35 years immersed in Europe's ...

Steve Lacy: With Mal Waldron and the Beats

by Clifford Allen
October 28, 2003

Steve Lacy / Mal Waldron Live at Dreher Paris 1981 hatOLOGY 2003 According to Steve Lacy, playing Monk's music offered the improviser a way to see what was on “the other side," not just of an individual tune's possibilities, but to a certain sort of harmonic and rhythmic freedom available to the player in any environment. For a time, this led to Lacy's dropping the tunes altogether. It is quite natural then ...

Steve Lacy: 10 Of Dukes + 6 Originals

by Jay Collins
October 7, 2003

Soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy has been following his own path for well over fifty years, initially as a traditional jazz musician (drawing upon his chief inspiration, Sidney Bechet), but ultimately becoming comfortable with a more modern approach due to stints with both Cecil Taylor and Thelonious Monk. His personal instrumental and compositional style continue to confirm his legendary status, whether performing with his own groups, with others, or as a solo performer. Ten of Dukes + Six Originals, another addition ...

Mal Waldron/Steve Lacy: Live At Dreher Paris 1981

by Mark Corroto
September 25, 2003

The digital age with its bits and bytes has allowed for huge musical projects and reissue bonanzas. We have come from Louis Armstrong playing two minute classics cut into cylinders to today’s complete recordings of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson sessions, expanded from double LPs to four and five CDs of raw material.

Like Keith Jarrett’s recent live six-disc Blue Note set, the sprawling Live At Dreher, Paris 1981 is a large scale recording documenting a performance by ...

Steve Lacy: The Beat Suite

by Dan McClenaghan
August 25, 2003

The Beat Suite, alto saxophonist Steve Lacy's latest foray into what he calls lit-jazz, features the poetry of the Beats--jazz lovers all--set to Lacy's music. The Beats (Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs and more) are given a surprisingly accessible treatment here, considering Lacy's reputation for being “out there." Steve Lacy, under the influence of the great New Orleans altoist Sidney Bechet, started his musical journey playing Dixieland back in the early fifties, but moved quickly ...