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Steve Lacy Quintet: Last Tour
As its title says, this album dates from Steve Lacy's last tour, which ran from the summer of 2003 in NYC through to March 2004 in Boston, (where Lacy was living at the time, as he was teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music). The eight tracks on this album were recorded in Boston's ICA on March 12. Lacy was joined on the tour by musicians he knew well, his wife Irène Aebi on vocals, Jean-Jacques Avenel on bass, ...
read moreSteve Lacy: Cycles (1976 – 1980)
The autumn 2014 releases from Emanem brought a double dose of good news for admirers of the late, great soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy. Firstly, the label's excellent 2011 reissue of the classic School Days album is available again, now that wrangles over some of its content have been amicably resolved. Secondly, and remarkably, this twenty-track double CD set, Cycles contains fifteen previously unissued tracks of solo Lacy in peak form, recorded between 1976 and 1980--a total of some 111 minutes ...
read moreSteve Lacy: Avignon and After Volume 2
In 2012, Emanem released Avignon and After Volume 1 which consisted of re-released and previously unreleased tracks from the late great soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy's first solo concerts, at Avignon in 1972, plus previously unreleased tracks recorded live in Berlin in 1974. It was an excellent and valuable addition to the Lacy discography. Teasingly, its sleeve notes hinted that there was still enough unreleased Lacy material for another volume. Now, to confirm that, here is that second volume as promised. ...
read moreSteve Lacy: Avignon and After - 1
Emanem and Steve Lacy have been entwined since the label was born with the release of the saxophonist's LP Solo (1974). The first eight tracks of this CD hold the contents of that album, recorded at two August, 1972 concerts in Avignon--significantly, Lacy's very first solo concerts. Ever since, the label has championed the music of Lacy with several landmark releases. This CD and its companion, The Sun (2012), are prime examples. Together, this pair of albums replaces the 1995 ...
read moreSteve Lacy Five: Blinks...Zurich Live 1983
Blinks...Zurich Live 1983 is one of those ageless albums that accentuates the unparalleled synchronicity of iconic soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy's Five, captured live at a 1983 concert in Zurich, Switzerland. Packed with the leader's linear and concise theme constructions, the band reconfigures and rewinds many of the primary melodies amid moments of energized minimalism and lyrical eloquence. Over the course of time, it is perhaps more apparent these days that Lacy and saxophonist Steve Potts were near perfect foils--indeed, a ...
read moreSteve Lacy Five: Blinks...Zurich Live 1983
Few musicians bestrode the world of the avant-garde like the proverbial Colossus, but Steve Lacy did. He played with the heart of a giant and a soul in which a flame was lit in the '50s, when he began his career playing Dixieland music. By the time he made his presence felt in the avant-garde playing the straight horn, he was in the middle of a forest fire of his own making. So hot was the music he played both ...
read moreSteve Lacy: School Days
As the title suggests, School Days is both ironic--because the ingenuity of these musicians might have actually been the best schooled at the time of the recording--and iconic, as well. The reason? Steve Lacy and Roswell Rudd formed one of the great, seminal repertory ensembles of all time, playing the music of Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols. Moreover, this reissue includes two tracks of Monk's group that included Steve Lacy. While the recordings with Monk have been issued previously, on ...
read moreSteve Lacy: School Days
Soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy's School Days has had a long and checkered release history. Recorded live in New York in March 1963, it was first issued on vinyl by Emanem in 1975 and later reissued on QED, an Emanem pseudonym. It first appeared on CD on Hat Art in 1994, and again on Hatology in 2003. Now, its CD release on Emanem is cause for celebration for several reasons. Most importantly, it puts this wonderful album back in circulation again, ...
read moreSteve Lacy: November
The world of improvised music lost one of the greats when Steve Lacy ceased walking this earth. His music was as singular as that of anyone who has graced that world, and the fact that he chose to communicate exclusively through the medium of the soprano saxophone had the effect of elevating him to a rare position. All the singularity with which he pursued his muse is here on this his last recorded solo recital from 2003.
Lacy's approach to ...
read moreSteve Lacy: November
Even without the back story of November, the music of soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy exists on its own merits. Compare this live recording to the two dozen-plus solo sessions by this master, and it stands up to any of them.
Not that Lacy was in his finest form here, having been diagnosed with liver cancer. He was to pass away within six months. Did the audience that November night in Switzerland know of his fate? Maybe. Certainly the ...
read moreSteve Lacy: Let’s Call This…Esteem; Hall Egg Farm 2000.10.16; November and Ideal Bread's Transmit
Steve Lacy/Mal WaldronLet's Call This...EsteemSLAM-Silta2010 Steve LacyHall Egg Farm 2000.10.16Suigyu2010 Steve LacyNovemberIntakt2010 Ideal BreadTransmitCuneiform2010 Steve Lacy (1934-2004) held several distinctions in his 50-year career. He, alongside John Coltrane, was responsible for the modern template of soprano saxophone playing. ...
read moreSteve Lacy: The Forest and the Zoo
Soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy's impressive career was filled with many benchmarks, but 1966's The Forest and the Zoo is surely one of his strongest. Having corrected the erroneous phasing on the original release of the album, this reissue sees the two side-long quartet works sounding better than ever.
Playing no small part in the elastic excitement of these excursions is the able work of Lacy's sidemen. Comprised of an international body of musicians including Italian trumpeter ...
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