Steve Lacy
American musician and composer who, helped introduce a neglected instrument, the soprano saxophone, into modern jazz in the mid-1950s, creating simple, lyric melodies with an individualistic concept of solo form and giving the traditionally high, piping horn a personal warmth and range of expression. While many modal and free-jazz saxophonists followed in his footsteps, Lacy remained one of the rare soprano saxophonists to concentrate exclusively on that instrument.
American musician and composer who, helped introduce a neglected instrument, the soprano saxophone, into modern jazz in the mid-1950s, creating simple, lyric melodies with an individualistic concept of solo form and giving the traditionally high, piping horn a personal warmth and range of expression. While many modal and free-jazz saxophonists followed in his footsteps, Lacy remained one of the rare soprano saxophonists to concentrate exclusively on that instrument.
Live In Montreal
This live concert is perhaps one of the last recordings from soprano saxophone legend Steve Lacy. Lacy and percussionist John Heward first met in Paris in 1975. Though they remained in regular contact through the years, they did not actually play together until this concert in Montreal on 20 June 2003. Two months later Lacy was diagnosed with cancer, and died in June 2004.Lacy suggested to Heward that he wanted to end this improvisation with the motif Recessional for Oliver Johnson, as a tribute…
The Forest and the Zoo
** 2021 Stock ** "In 1966, the late Steve Lacy visited the new ESP-DISK office at 156 Fifth Avenue with a master tape of his concert in Buenos Aires with his quartet... He offered to sell the master for what I thought was an exorbitant price. I bought it. ... In 1992, the master tape was brought to engineer Ken Robertson at the Sony Studio, who observed that it had been recorded out of phase, and he corrected the phasing." - Bernard Stollman
"Soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy's impressive career wa…
Evidence
Soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy continued his early exploration of Thelonious Monk’s compositions on this 1961’s Evidence Lacy worked extensively with Monk, absorbing the pianist’s intricate music and adding his individualist soprano saxophone mark to it. On this date, he employs the equally impressive Don Cherry on trumpet, who was playing with the Ornette Coleman quartet at the time, drummer Billy Higgins, who played with both Coleman and Monk, and bassist Carl Brown. Cherry proved capable of p…
New York Total Music Company 1968 - SWR Broadcast
Restocked, very last copies ** Private edition, limited to 107 hand-numbered copies ** Broadcast from SWR, recorded at 10th Deutsches Jazzfestival Frankfurt, Germany, on March 24, 1968. This is is Cherry at his absolute best, encountering him with a stellar line up comprised of Don Cherry (tpt, cnt, bamboo fl); Steve Lacy (ss); Karl Berger (vb, p); Kent Carter (b); Jacques Thollot (d). This live set captures a pitch perfect image of his roving, restless and ambitious creative mind – an artist p…
Flaps
**500 copies** Steve Lacy had plenty of fantastic moments on the European scene of the 70s – but this unique album may well stand as one of his best! The set's very different than any of Steve's recordings with his own group – partly because the core energy here comes from trumpeter Franz Koglmann – who sets things up in a really unusual way, by often embracing rhythm – but also setting it free in all these other erratic patterns too – which proves to be a perfect foil for Steve's soprano sax, a…
Threads
** Killer. Released in 1977 on Horo Records, first time available again after 40 years** New York-born alto saxophonist Steve Lacy became associated with the avant-garde jazz movement from the mid-1950s, playing on free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor’s influential debut LP and early work by the Canadian pianist Gil Evans, before serving a long tenure with the idiosyncratic improv pianist Theolonius Monk, whose work he would continue to reference throughout his career. Visiting Europe from the md-1960…
Live at Yubin Chokin Kaikan Hall, Tokyo,14.05.1986
For this historical concert held at the Yubin Chokin Hall, in Tokyo on May 14, 1986, the legendary Japanese drummer Masahiko Togashi brought together an amazing line-up with such modern jazz luminaries as Steve Lacy (soprano sax), Don Cherry (pocket trumpet) and Dave Holland (bass). This particular album consists of four previously unpublished tracks (on vinyl), including some highly regarded Lacy's compositions such as The Crus and Quakes, and Don Cherry's African flavored anthem called Mopti. …
Situations
My relationship with Steve Lacy’s music is not occasional. It was for me the “door”. Since 2009, titled So Long!, I have presented several times a program with his compositions on bass clarinet. In the summer of 2013, on the mountains, I recorded the solo using the Bb clarinet, finding a bare, naked and raw dimension that marks an important point in my personal process with the music of Steve. “I try to be empty and to see what sounds” (Tom Raworth) Giancarlo nino LocatelliLacy’s tunes are devis…
The Complete Remastered Recordings. Solos Duos Trios
In the Complete Remastered Recordings on Black Saint & Soul Note box set series, Steve Lacy's Solos, Duos, Trios volume is a standout. These recordings are not arranged chronologically, but according to the number of personnel involved on their individual dates. The set commences with 1985's Only Monk and is followed by More Monk from 1989. These are both brilliant recitals by the man who was one of the Thelonious Monk's greatest interpreters. The programs are a balance of canonical and lesser-k…
Reflections: Steve Lacy Plays Thelonious Monk
Jeanne Dielman presents a reissue of Steve Lacy's Reflections, originally released on New Jazz in 1959. The legendary reeds-man Steve Lacy takes on the brilliant compositions of Thelonious Monk. Reflections is a glorious quartet session with Lacy on soprano sax, accompanied by the great Mal Waldron on piano, as worthy a pianist to take on the tunes of Monk as one could imagine, along with Buell Neidlinger on bass, and the amazing Elvin Jones on the trap kit. Though it's only Lacy's second record…
Stamps
Corbett Vs. Dempsey present a reissue of Steve Lacy's Stamps, originally released in 1979 as a double-LP on Hat Hut. Stamps was Steve Lacy's first for the legendary Swiss label, and it remains one of the strongest statements of what he termed the "scratchy seventies". With the classic lineup of Lacy's soprano saxophone, Steve Potts on soprano and alto sax, Irene Aebi on cello (and singing on one track), Kent Carter on bass, and Oliver Johnson on drums, the recording catches the band live, perfor…
Distant Voices
Aguirre Records present a reissue of Distant Voices, Steve Lacy's rare Japanese collaboration album, originally released in 1976. Renowned for remarkable solo concerts that confirmed his mastery of the soprano horn and that carried its instrumental language into previously unexplored regions, Lacy also loved to collaborate with musicians who could inspire him to stretch the boundaries of his own artistry. During the summer of 1975 Lacy toured Japan, and on June 24th he entered a Nippon Columbia …
Il Bestiario
** Temporary super offer, very last copies ** There was never anyone like Maria Monti – and this album is a true testament to her genius! Il Bestiario might be best understood next to albums by artists like Brigitte Fontaine, Scott Walker, and Catherine Ribeiro, all of whom began their careers within the saccharine confines of popular music, before embarking on some of the most revolutionary recordings of the era. It enlisted the radical poet Aldo Braibanti (a man defined “the lone true Italian…
Free for a Minute (1966-72) 2CD
An incredible package – one that brings together two very important albums from reedman Steve Lacy – plus unreleased material from the same time too! First up is the record Disposability – presented here with the first-ever correction to the cymbal sound – a key session in the development of Steve Lacy – and a great one too! The album was one of Lacy's first European recordings – caught in the studio in Rome in 1965, with a very free-styled trio that includes Alberto Romano on drums and Kent Car…
Tips
2015 release. A reissue of Steve Lacy and Steve Potts's Tips, originally released on Hat Hut Records in 1981. Soprano saxophonist Lacy wrote the suite of tunes for Tips to feature the aphorisms of painter Georges Braque, as sung by Irene Aebi. Together with his right-hand-man, alto saxophonist Potts, he and Aebi recorded these 14 anthemic tracks in Paris in 1979, and the young hat Hut Records label issued them on a now-rare LP. The music allowed Lacy to extend and deepen his longstanding interes…
New Jazz Festival Balver Höhle (New Jazz 1974 & 1975)
Recorded live at the cave at Balve, West Germany, July 27/28, 1974 and May 31/June 1, 1975. Box Set with 11 CDs featuring the best of the New Jazz Scene from Europe and the USA in 1974/75. 32-page booklet with concert pictures, posters, flyers and newspaper clippings (in German and English). Includes complete performances and improvisations by Peter Brötzmann, Jasper van’t Hof, John Surman (with the legendary Trio Surman-Osborne-Skidmore) Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennink and many more!
RECORDED li…
Eternal Duo
One of the most compelling albums Steve Lacy recorded during the 80s – a spare set of duets with Japanese percussionist Masahiko Togashi, who really helps shape Steve's style on the record! Togashi approaches his instruments with a very introspective, almost tentative style – hardly the bold rhythms of other drummers, and instead this subtle stepping forward that almost feels, at times, as if Masahiko is discovering his instruments for the first time – and figuring out the sounds in a careful wa…
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 vo…
Last Tour
Steve Lacy (soprano saxophone), Irene Aebi (voice), George Lewis (trombone), Jean-Jacques Avenel (double bass) and John Betsch (drums). After a long tour of North America, this quintet concluded by playing two concerts in Boston (March 2004) - most of the first one being included here. The material is five of the Beat poems featuring Irene Aebi, plus three instrumentals, including one (Baghdad) that has not been on record before as it had only just been written. After a lot of working together, …
Morning Joy ...Paris Live
"Reissue as part of the 40th anniversary of Hat Hut Records. What we have here is a one-nighter by the Steve Lacy Quartet at Paris' Sunset Club...The four members of the quartet get a chance to stretch out and you can feel the club energy clearly in the recording - it's a good night at the Sunset...in this era of homogenization - of jazz players who are filled with technique but have gotten their sound from textbooks - there is not enough attention that can be focused on an uncompromising jazz i…