The Straight Horn Of Steve Lacy by Steve Lacy - The "straight horn" referred to in the title of this superb album from 1961 is the soprano saxophone, and Lacy is recognized as one of the greatest to ever play the instrument, ranking alongside John Coltrane and Sidney Bechet. Because of the difficulty involved in mastering it's pitch challenges, very few jazzmen concentrated on it. Lacy is widely considered the first "modern" musician to specialize on the instrument. Lacy had long and prolific career and a fascinating style trajectory. At sixteen he began playing Dixieland with the likes of Pee Wee Russell. In the mid 1950's he played free jazz with Cecil Taylor, and appeared with his groundbreaking quartet at the 1957 New Port Jazz Festival. He made a notable appearance on the 1959 Gil Evens, Great Jazz Standards album. Along the way, Lacy became obsessed with the music of Thelonious Monk, working with him several times including the 1963 Big Band and Quartet in Concert album, and devoted much of this life's work to the interpretation of Monk's materiel.
The "straight horn" referred to in the title of this superb album from 1961 is the soprano saxophone, and Lacy is recognized as one of the greatest to ever play the instrument, ranking alongside John Coltrane and Sidney Bechet. Because of the difficulty involved in mastering it's pitch challenges, very few jazzmen concentrated on it. Lacy is widely considered the first "modern" musician to specialize on the instrument. Lacy had long and prolific career and a fascinating style trajectory. At sixteen he began playing Dixieland with the likes of Pee Wee Russell. In the mid 1950's he played free jazz with Cecil Taylor, and appeared with his groundbreaking quartet at the 1957 New Port Jazz Festival. He made a notable appearance on the 1959 Gil Evens, Great Jazz Standards album. Along the way, Lacy became obsessed with the music of Thelonious Monk, working with him several times including the 1963 Big Band and Quartet in Concert album, and devoted much of this life's work to the interpretation of Monk's materiel
Clangs was the fruit of a number of concerts and two weeks we spent together, sometimes talking, sometimes just simply in silence, a silence nonetheless already thick with references and interpretative codes. The structure of his music, though at times incredibly advanced, goes back to the old jazz idiom of theme/ solo /theme, features that Lacy has always kept in his mind when composing. On Clangs too, it is Lacy's themes which serve as the guiding thread for a series of duets that investigate timbral relationships, the fragmentation of melody, and abrasive, provocative noise. - Andrea Centazzo.
This CD is a performance with a classic jazz combo: saxophone, double bass, and percussion. Naturally, the percussion no longer reflects the timbre of the tonal instrument, but brushes up the executive praxis in long 4/4 accompaniments next to Carter's extraordinary bass. All tracks on this CD were recorded live at a concert in Udine, the final show of a tour that covered all the major Italian cities. - Andrea Centazzo.
In 1966, the late Steve Lacy visited the new ESP-DISK office at 156 5th avenue with a master tape of his concert in Buenos Aires with his quartet, Louis Moholo, Enrico Rava and Johnny Dyani. He offered to sell the master for what I thought was an exorbitant price. I bought it. This LP was released featuring a reproduction of a painting by his friend, the late Bob Thompson, who had died before obtaining recognition. In 1992, the master tape was brought to engineer Ken Robertson at the Sony Studio, who observed that it had been recorded out of phase, and he corrected the phasing. - Bernard Stollman Digitally remastered from the original tapes Featured Artists Steve Lacy: soprano saxophone Enrico Rava: trumpet Johnny Dyani: bass Louis T. Moholo: drums.
Few artists create inventive and challenging music with the consistency of Lacy and Rudd. Both musicians are rooted in the idioms of Dixieland an pre-bop jazz and share a mutual fascination with the music of Tehelonis Monk, but perhaps best known for straddling the fence between straight ahead jazz and avant-garde.
