Steve Lacy (original) (raw)

Steve Lacy, born Steven Norman Lacritz in New York, 1934 is an innovative jazz soprano saxophonist.

Lacy is unique in jazz for having apprenticed in Dixieland music with masters such as Henry "Red" Allen, George "Pops" Foster and Zutty Singleton and then with Kansas City jazz players like Buck Clayton, Dicky Wells, and Jimmy Rushing before jumping into the heart of the avant garde with Cecil Taylor, Thelonious Monk, and Gil Evans.

Lacy established his reputation as a jazz musician in Paris and is thus largely unrecognised in his home country. He subsequently developed into a composer in his own right.

He worked and collaborated extensively with the cut-up poet and writer Brion Gysin.