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

  48 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

  16 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  5 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Art, Thinking, Collaboration

  16 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Music, Heart, Play

  15 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

  17 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

  6 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

  7 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

  6 Copy quote

• The potential for the saxophone is unlimited.

  Steve Lacy

  Saxophone, Unlimited

  35 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

  11 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  People, Important, Circumstances

  8 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Weed, Marijuana, Bamboo

  54 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

  14 Copy quote

• If you're trying to invent something new, you're going to reach a lot of discouraging points, and most people give up.

  Steve Lacy

  Stars, Giving Up, People

  9 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

  11 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Play, Pieces, Saxophone

  12 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

  88 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steve Lacy

  Play, Want, Dies

  5 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

  54 Copy quote

• Jazz is people's music, a collectivity.

  Steve Lacy

  People, Jazz, Collectivity

  85 Copy quote

• 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.

  Steve Lacy

  Play, Interesting, Risk

  7 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Saxophone

  23 Copy quote

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

  Steve Lacy

  Interesting, Machines, Saxophone

  7 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

  8 Copy quote

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