Quotes By Steve Lacy

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

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

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.

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

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.

When I heard Monk in person in 1955, he was playing with a quartet in a small club. The place was full of musicians, but there was no public at all.

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

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

I've always been extremely lucky in playing with great people who knew much more than I did. That's how I got from there to here.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.