Steve Lacy Quotes

The soprano has all those other instruments in it. It's got the soprano song voice, flute, violin, clarinet, and tenor elements and can even approach the baritone in intensity.

Jazz is people's music, a collectivity.

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.

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

The potential for the saxophone is unlimited.

Saxophone is one thing, and music is another.

You can work on the saxophone alone, but ultimately you must perform with others.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When I came up, it was all about originality and collective research. There is an awful lot of imitation going on now.

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.

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

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

What I learned with Cecil Taylor was strategy and survival and how to resist temptations and resist getting discouraged.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The more original something is, the more of a threat it seems until the people catch up with it. That happened with Thelonious Monk. It happened with anybody who is really original.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Make the drummer sound good.

You have to sound sad first of all, then maybe later you can sound good.