Steve Lacy, 69, Who Popularized the Soprano Saxophone, Dies
By BEN RATLIFF
Copyright 2004 The New York Times
Steve Lacy, an American soprano saxophonist who spent more than half of his 50-year career living in Europe and helped legitimize his instrument in postwar jazz, died yesterday in Boston. He was 69.
The cause was cancer, according to an announcement from the New England Conservatory of Music, where Mr. Lacy had been teaching since 2002.
After performing in New York, his hometown, Mr. Lacy moved to Italy and France, and became the most Europeanized of all expatriate American jazz musicians. He married one of his musical collaborators, the Swiss-born singer Irene Aebi, who survives him. He insisted on a literary dimension to his work, incorporating texts by novelists, poets and philosophers
Copyright 2004 The New York Times
Steve Lacy, an American soprano saxophonist who spent more than half of his 50-year career living in Europe and helped legitimize his instrument in postwar jazz, died yesterday in Boston. He was 69.
The cause was cancer, according to an announcement from the New England Conservatory of Music, where Mr. Lacy had been teaching since 2002.
After performing in New York, his hometown, Mr. Lacy moved to Italy and France, and became the most Europeanized of all expatriate American jazz musicians. He married one of his musical collaborators, the Swiss-born singer Irene Aebi, who survives him. He insisted on a literary dimension to his work, incorporating texts by novelists, poets and philosophers
For more information contact All About Jazz.
