Steve Lacy Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Steve Lacy

  Uprising, Threat, Status Quo

  43 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Music, Want, Jazz

  11 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steve Lacy

  Armstrong, Ifs

  2 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Sound, Continuing, Ifs

  13 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Art, Thinking, Collaboration

  12 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Music, Heart, Play

  10 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Music, Wine, Experts

  9 Copy quote

• A jazz musician is a combination orator, dialectician, mathematician, athlete, entertainer, poet, singer, dancer, diplomat, educator, student, comedian, artist, seducer, public masturbator, and general all-round good fellow.

  Steve Lacy

  Athlete, Artist, Dancer

  6 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Research, Awful, Originality

  7 Copy quote

• The potential for the saxophone is unlimited.

  Steve Lacy

  Saxophone, Unlimited

  30 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Saxophone

  16 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Play, Pieces, Saxophone

  8 Copy quote

• Jazz is people's music, a collectivity.

  Steve Lacy

  People, Jazz, Collectivity

  81 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steve Lacy

  Song, Voice, Elements

  83 Copy quote

• Bamboo is not a weed, it's a flowering plant. Bamboo is a magnificent plant.

  Steve Lacy

  Weed, Marijuana, Bamboo

  49 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Interesting, Machines, Saxophone

  3 Copy quote

• Saxophone is one thing, and music is another.

  Steve Lacy

  Saxophone, Music Is, One Thing

  20 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Temptation, Survival, Strategy

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steve Lacy

  Weed, Marijuana, Doe

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steve Lacy

  Fear, Real, Sharks

  49 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steve Lacy

  Crazy, Stupid, Years

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steve Lacy

  Giving Up, Important, Sound

  3 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Use, Instruments, Justify

  3 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steve Lacy

  Years, Imagination, Up To You

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steve Lacy

  People, Monk, Threat

  2 Copy quote

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