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 at Yoshi's 1994
On Live at Yoshi’s 1994, Mal Waldron and Steve Lacy turn a decades‑deep partnership into a single, extended act of listening, folding Monk, Ellington, Strayhorn and their own themes into a stark, tensile dialogue where every note feels earned.
The Straight Horn Of Steve Lacy
Originally released in 1962 on Candid Records, The Straight Horn of Steve Lacy finds a young Steve Lacy stepping forward with quiet confidence and a sound unlike anyone else at the time. Stripped of excess and focused on tone, space, and intent, these sessions reveal a musician already thinking beyond convention. The soprano sax cuts clean and direct, moving between sharp angles and lyrical calm, with a small group that listens as closely as it plays. Nothing here feels rushed or ornamental, jus…
Dreamachine
Wewantsounds is delighted to release for the 1st time on vinyl Brion Gysin's cult recordings, produced by Ramuntcho Matta in the 80s and early 90s. The release features the hypnotic 32-minute journey "Dreamachine," which transforms the effects of Gysin's legendary light art device into a mesmerizing audio experience, alongside the track "The Door," featuring the visionary saxophonist Steve Lacy. A towering figure in avant-garde art, literature, and sound, Gysin influenced generations of creators…
Situations (Giancarlo "Nino" Locatelli Plays Steve Lacy)
*2025 stock* Situations is one of WE INSIST! Records’ most recent productions. It is an immersion in the solo clarinet by Giancarlo “nino” Locatelli, an expert well-versed in the music of Steve Lacy, who has captured the essence of the great American saxophonist’s music through a series of interpretations of his compositions.
The Officine Saffi gallery in Milan opens its doors to a new initiative combining Art and Music. On the evening of the inauguration, Giancarlo “nino” Locatelli presented th…
Prayer
I think it's important and proper to play Steve Lacy's music today and that we have to take the risk. Keeping his example alive means to me every time to question the results achieved. My relationship with his music is not occasional. Steve is present in three tracks of my first album "trochus". Later I played his music alone and in various groups. I would like to remember at least the Fish Horn Quartet, with Fabio Martini, Jean Jaques Avenel and John Betsch, the sextet 5or6 Bones with Sebi Tram…
Straws (LP)
At long last, after remaining out of print for decades, the Milan based imprint, Dialogo, dives into the legendary catalog of Cramps, bringing forth the first ever vinyl reissue of Steve Lacy’s LP, "Straws", issued as the sixth instalment of the label’s DIVerso series in 1977. Truly singular in the legendary American saxophonist’s discography - featuring stunning solo excursions and dialogs with himself - it remains one of the great documents of 1970s improvisation, and is as engrossing, creativ…
The Forest and the Zoo
"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 was filled with man…
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…
The Rest
The first and only recorded meeting between two absolute giants of the soprano saxophone - Steve Lacy and Joe McPhee - finally sees the light of day after 36 years! On June 9, 1977, Lacy and McPhee shared a double bill in Basel, Switzerland. Lacy invited McPhee to join him for a duet to close his set, and McPhee brought out his own soprano saxophone for what would become a historic encounter. The main part of Lacy's performance was issued on the classic Clinkers LP back in the day, but this fina…