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You must have the music to justify an instrument's extensive use.

Steve Lacy

Music

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

Steve Lacy

First

Sound

Saxophone is one thing, and music is another.

Steve Lacy

Music

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

Steve Lacy

Work

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

I fell in love with jazz when I was 12 years old from listening to Duke Ellington and hearing a lot of jazz in New York on the radio.

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

Steve Lacy

Love

Play

I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of jazz.

The potential for the saxophone is unlimited.

Steve Lacy

Potential

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.

I still love the whole history of jazz. The old things sound better than ever.

What I learned with Cecil Taylor was strategy and survival and how to resist temptations and resist getting discouraged.

When I came up, it was all about originality and collective research. There is an awful lot of imitation going on now.

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.