#all

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 #better #free #hear #listen

Some people really want to play Mozart and be just performers. I was more interested in invention. ↗

— Steve Lacy

#interested #invention #just #more #mozart

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

#catch #happened #monk #more #original

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

#become #call #else #go #going

They call me before they go into production, when they have a prototype, and they call legitimate saxophonists, too. As opposed to the other kind. ↗

— Steve Lacy

#call #go #into #kind #legitimate

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

#contain #does #living #living thing #me

When I first started playing music in 1955, there was just a small body of people that knew it. It was a very esoteric type of thing. ↗

— Steve Lacy

#esoteric #first #i #just #knew

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. ↗

— Steve Lacy

#full #heard #i #monk #musicians

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

— Steve Lacy

#first of all #good #later #maybe #sad

I don't care how small the parts are, as long as they're good. ↗

— Alan Ladd

#good #how #i #long #parts