Steve Lacy

Steve Lacy: Conversations is a collection of thirty-four interviews with the innovative saxophonist and jazz composer. Lacy (1934-2004), a pioneer in making the soprano saxophone a contemporary jazz instrument, was a prolific performer and composer, with hundreds of recordings to his name. This volume brings together interviews which appeared in a variety of magazines over forty-five years, from 1959 until 2004. Conducted by writers, critics, musicians, visual artists, a philosopher, and an architect, the interviews indicate the evolution of Lacy's extraordinary career and thought. Lacy began playing the saxophone at age sixteen, and was soon performing with Dixieland musicians much older than him. By nineteen, he was playing with pianist Cecil Taylor, who ignited his interest in the avant-garde. He eventually became the foremost proponent of Thelonius Monk's music. Lacy played with a broad range of musicians, including Monk and Gil Evans, and led his own bands. A voracious reader and the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, Lacy was particularly known for setting to music literary texts - such as the Tao Te Ching, and the work of poets including Samuel Beckett, Robert Creeley, and Taslima Nasrin - as well as for collaborating with painters and dancers in multimedia projects. Lacy lived in Paris from 1970 until 2002, and his music and ideas reflect a decades-long cross-pollination of cultures. Half of the interviews in this collection originally appeared in French sources and were translated specifically for this book. Jason Weiss provides a general introduction, as well as short introductions to each of the interviews and to the selection of Lacy's own brief writings that appears at the end of the book. The volume also includes three song scores, a selected discography of Lacy's recordings, and many photos from the personal collection of his wife and longtime collaborator, Irene Aebi.