Steve Lacy Quotes

Circumstances can be very important. Find the right people to work with.

Saxophone is one thing, and music is another.

Risk is at the heart of jazz. Every note we play is a risk.

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

Whoever has an original thing to say, it is sort of a threat to the status quo.

It's very important to go through periods where you sound just rotten and you know it, and you have to persevere or give up.

Jazz is people's music, a collectivity.

Kenny G, I have to be grateful to him for proving that the instrument can be played all different kinds of ways.

Register is very important. Music sounds best in a certain register.

I heard Sidney Bechet play a Duke Ellington piece and fell in love with the soprano saxophone.

In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds.

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.

Bamboo is not a weed, it's a flowering plant. Bamboo is a magnificent plant.

The saxophone is a very interesting machine, but I'm more interested in music.

You must have the music to justify an instrument's extensive use.

Before the work comes to you, you have to invent work.

It starts with a single sound. If there's something in that sound, then it's worth continuing.

Play difficult and interesting things. If you play boring things, you risk losing your appetite. Saxophone can be tedious with too much of the same.

A jazz musician is a combination orator, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, poet, singer, dancer, diplomat, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer, public masturbator, and general all-round good fellow.

Make the drummer sound good.

Jazz is like wine. When it is new it's only for the experts, but when it gets older everybody wants it.

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

If you're trying to invent something new, you're going to reach a lot of discouraging points, and most people give up.

When I found the music of Monk I finally found music that fit that horn. Every one of his tunes fit it perfectly.

If you listen to Louis Armstrong from 1929, you will never hear anything better than that really, and you will never hear anything more free than that.

If you have music you want to play that no one asks you to play, you have to go out and find where you can play it. It's called do or die.

The potential for the saxophone is unlimited.

To me, there is spirit in a reed. It's a living thing, a weed, really, and it does contain spirit of a sort. It's really an ancient vibration.

A young pianist & composer who has demonstrated an exceptional creativity, in both his playing & his writing, as well as showing us all, his very strong commitment & motivation to aim for high musical goals. Talent like his is rare.

I've been working on the soprano saxophone for 40 years, and the possibilities are astounding. It's up to you, the only limit is the imagination.

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.

There is an awful lot of what I call recreational jazz going on, where people go out and learn a particular language or style and become real sharks on somebody else's language.

I wanted to be a pianist but it just wasn't my thing. I guess I wanted to stand up rather than sit down.

Nobody was playing the soprano saxophone and certainly nobody was trying to do anything with it. So I was all alone. I didn't know that at first.

I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of jazz.