Steve Lacy
Musician
1934-07-23
Quotes by Steve Lacy
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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.
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You can work on the saxophone alone, but ultimately you must perform with others.
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I heard Sidney Bechet play a Duke Ellington piece and fell in love with the soprano saxophone.
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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.
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The soprano turned out to sound to me like the right hand on the piano.
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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.
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What I learned with Cecil Taylor was strategy and survival and how to resist temptations and resist getting discouraged.
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When I found the music of Monk I finally found music that fit that horn. Every one of his tunes fit it perfectly.
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The potential for the saxophone is unlimited.
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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.
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Bamboo is not a weed, it's a flowering plant. Bamboo is a magnificent plant.
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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.
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Jazz is like wine. When it is new, it is only for the experts, but when it gets older, everybody wants it.
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