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Steve Lacy

Steve Lacy, one of the greatest soprano saxophonists of all time and a New England Conservatory faculty member since fall 2002, died Friday [June 4th, 2004] at New England Baptist Hospital. The jazz master who once defined his profession as “combination orator, singer, dancer, diplomat, poet, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer and general all around good fellow” was 69. He leaves his wife and collaborator, the Swiss singer Irene Aebi.

Born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York City, Lacy was the first avant garde jazz musician to make a specialty of the soprano saxophone--an instrument that had become almost completely neglected during the Bop era. Indeed, he is credited with single-handedly bringing the instrument back from obscurity into modern music of all types. He regularly received awards from DownBeat Magazine as the premier soprano saxophonist and in 1992 received a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant. In 2002, he was made a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. A prolific recording artist, Lacy is represented on many labels including Universal, Senators, RCA, Verve, Label Bleu, Greats of Jazz, EMI, CBS/Columbia, and Denon.

Throughout his career, Lacy was widely admired for the beauty and purity of his tone, for his incisive melodic sense, for keeping his music uncompromising and fresh, and for his eagerness to play with a wide variety of musicians while retaining long-term musical relationships. For example, since 1998, he performed often with Panamanian pianist and NEC faculty member Danilo Perez, but he also played regularly with Mal Waldron, a pianist he had worked with since the fifties. He was esteemed for his productivity, and for the consistently high quality of his art. As a teacher, a role he took on in the last two years of his life, he was revered for his intense focus and generosity.

During the latter part of his career, Lacy made his home in Paris for 33 years, but returned to the United States in 2002 to begin his first teaching job at NEC. He was prominently featured in the concerts celebrating the centennial of NEC's Jordan Hall in October 2003, kicking off the festivities in a Best of Jazz performance that featured other Conservatory jazz greats like Ran Blake, George Russell, Bob Brookmeyer, and alumnus Cecil Taylor.

Lacy got his start as a sideman in the early fifties playing in Manhattan's Dixieland revival scene. He also worked with some Duke Ellington players including cornetist Rex Stewart who christened him “Lacy.” Although he initially doubled on clarinet and soprano sax, he soon dropped the former instrument and found his distinctive voice with the saxophone. It was the NEC-trained Cecil Taylor who set Lacy on a new course and introduced him to Thelonious Monk--who, along with Duke Ellington, would remain the most important influence in his life. “Playing with Cecil Taylor immediately put me into the offensive mode” (of music- making), Lacy recalled in his book Findings: My Experience with the Soprano Saxophone. “This was the avant-tout garde; we were an attack quartet (sometimes quintet or trio), playing original, dangerously threatening music that most people were offended by….”

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Album Review

Steve Arguelles: Here

Read "Here" reviewed by Vincenzo Roggero


In che modo ci si approccia ad una registrazione di solo batteria, se sei un batterista che non crede negli assoli di batteria? Su questa domanda le note di copertina argomentano in modo brillante, lucido, esaustivo. Il musicista in questione è Steve Arguelles veterano della più vivace scena britannica, membro fondatore dei fondamentali Loose Tubes e Human Chain, collaboratore di musicisti come Lee Konitz, Kenny Wheeler, Hugh Masekela, Chris McGregor. La registrazione avviene nella chiesa luterana di ...

5
Book Excerpts

Steve Lacy: The Long Distance Runner

Read "Steve Lacy: The Long Distance Runner" reviewed by David Liebman


The following is an excerpt from “Threads: Evocations & Echos" of Steve Lacy (Unfinished) by Guillaume Tarche (Editions Lenka lente, 2021). I can't say that I knew Steve personally that well. We did one duo concert in Italy which was interesting to say the least, a story in itself. But of course, being the king of the soprano saxophone meant I had to be familiar with his music and artistic process. He predates Shorter and Trane on soprano... ...

Album Review

Steve Lacy: Free For a Minute (1965/72)

Read "Free For a Minute (1965/72)" reviewed by Enrico Bettinello


Non erano mai stati ufficialmente ristampati su CD né Disposabilty né Sortie, due momenti a loro modo significativi nell'evoluzione del linguaggio del sassofonista Steve Lacy durante gli anni Sessanta. Li ripropone oggi la Emanem, in un doppio CD completato da alcuni interessanti inediti. Pubblicati originariamente in Italia (Lacy si era stabilito per un periodo a Roma durante l'irrequieto nomadismo europeo che seguiva le delusioni professionali newyorkesi), sono lavori che raccontano la rapida transizione dell'artista verso ...

2
Album Review

Steve Lacy Quintet: Last Tour

Read "Last Tour" reviewed by John Eyles


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, ...

1
Album Review

Steve Lacy: Cycles

Read "Cycles" reviewed by Enrico Bettinello


Cycles è il risultato della meritoria azione filologica di Martin Davidson, che, recuperando quindici inediti, ricostruisce tre “cicli" di composizioni soliste di Steve Lacy della seconda metà degli anni Settanta. Il primo, composto da otto temi è “Shots," già registrato in LP per la Musica Records nel 1977 a Parigi, in duo con il percussionista giapponese Masa Kwate. La fonte principale della ricostruzione che apre questo doppio CD è un concerto al Teatro Alberico di Roma, pochi ...

7
Album Review

Steve Lacy: Cycles (1976 – 1980)

Read "Cycles (1976 – 1980)" reviewed by John Eyles


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 ...

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Multiple Reviews

I tesori della Emanem

Read "I tesori della Emanem" reviewed by Enrico Bettinello


Gli appassionati di jazz europeo conoscono bene il nome della Emanem, l'etichetta fondata nel 1974 da Martin Davidson per documentare la scena londinese legata alla free improvisation e che nel suo vasto catalogo custodisce molti capolavori anche di artisti americani. Bobby Bradford e John Carter Tandem Tra le più recenti ristampe--alcune delle quali sono giunte alla seconda edizione ampliata--ne segnaliamo alcune che ancora oggi ci raccontano una bellezza e un'urgenza davvero uniche, a ...

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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Steve Lacy's birthday today!

Steve Lacy, one of the greatest soprano saxophonists of all time and a New England Conservatory faculty member since fall 2002, died Friday [June 4th, 2004] at New England Baptist Hospital. The jazz master who once defined his profession as “combination orator, singer, dancer, diplomat, poet, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer and general all around good fellow” was 69. He leaves his wife and collaborator, the Swiss ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Steve Lacy's birthday today!

Steve Lacy, one of the greatest soprano saxophonists of all time and a New England Conservatory faculty member since fall 2002, died Friday [June 4th, 2004] at New England Baptist Hospital. The jazz master who once defined his profession as “combination orator, singer, dancer, diplomat, poet, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer and general all around good fellow” was 69. He leaves his wife and collaborator, the Swiss ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Steve Lacy's birthday today!

Steve Lacy, one of the greatest soprano saxophonists of all time and a New England Conservatory faculty member since fall 2002, died Friday [June 4th, 2004] at New England Baptist Hospital. The jazz master who once defined his profession as “combination orator, singer, dancer, diplomat, poet, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer and general all around good fellow” was 69. He leaves his wife and collaborator, the Swiss ...

1

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Steve Lacy's birthday today!

Steve Lacy, one of the greatest soprano saxophonists of all time and a New England Conservatory faculty member since fall 2002, died Friday [June 4th, 2004] at New England Baptist Hospital. The jazz master who once defined his profession as “combination orator, singer, dancer, diplomat, poet, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer and general all around good fellow” was 69. He leaves his wife and collaborator, the Swiss ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Steve Lacy's birthday today!

Steve Lacy, one of the greatest soprano saxophonists of all time and a New England Conservatory faculty member since fall 2002, died Friday [June 4th, 2004] at New England Baptist Hospital. The jazz master who once defined his profession as “combination orator, singer, dancer, diplomat, poet, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer and general all around good fellow” was 69... Read more.

Place our Musician of the Day ...

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Steve Lacy's birthday today!

Steve Lacy, one of the greatest soprano saxophonists of all time and a New England Conservatory faculty member since fall 2002, died Friday [June 4th, 2004] at New England Baptist Hospital. The jazz master who once defined his profession as “combination orator, singer, dancer, diplomat, poet, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer and general all around good fellow” was 69... Read more.

Place our Musician of the Day ...

1

Music Industry

Steve Lacy and Whitey Mitchell

Steve Lacy and Whitey Mitchell

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Mention the soprano saxophone, and most people think first of Sidney Bechet, Lucky Thompson, Pony Poindexter, John Coltrane and Dave Liebman. But in the 1950s and beyond, the artist who did more to demonstrate the instrument's versatility across multiple jazz styles was Steve Lacy. He began in the early 1950s as a New Orleans-style player, using the instrument as a clarinet. Then he shifted to progressive jazz in the mid-1950s before becoming an early pioneer of avant-garde jazz with Cecil ...

1

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Steve Lacy's birthday today!

Steve Lacy, one of the greatest soprano saxophonists of all time and a New England Conservatory faculty member since fall 2002, died Friday [June 4th, 2004] at New England Baptist Hospital. The jazz master who once defined his profession as “combination orator, singer, dancer, diplomat, poet, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer and general all around good fellow” was 69... Read more.

Place our Musician of the Day ...

1

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Steve Lacy's birthday today!

Steve Lacy, one of the greatest soprano saxophonists of all time and a New England Conservatory faculty member since fall 2002, died Friday [June 4th, 2004] at New England Baptist Hospital. The jazz master who once defined his profession as “combination orator, singer, dancer, diplomat, poet, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer and general all around good fellow” was 69... Read more.

Place our Musician of the Day ...

1

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Jazz Musician of the Day: Steve Lacy

Source: Michael Ricci

All About Jazz is celebrating Steve Lacy's birthday today! Steve Lacy, one of the greatest soprano saxophonists of all time and a New England Conservatory faculty member since fall 2002, died Friday [June 4th, 2004] at New England Baptist Hospital. The jazz master who once defined his profession as “combination orator, singer, dancer, diplomat, poet, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer and general all around good fellow” was 69... Read more. Place our Musician of the Day ...

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