[Dixielandjazz] Steve Lacy

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

I hadn't known Steve Lacy's given name was Lackritz....
Maybe he should have stuck to clarinet? Lackritz is after all German for liquorice, licorice or however anglophones spell the name.  
Soprano worshippers should hear Lacy on "Ella Speed" with Gil Evans, a Leadbelly number which leaps across the sort of stuff SL played with his teacher, and on some other very nice early recordings, into something just as nice.  
Later on, when I had a chance to hear him in the flesh, Lacy played with a different sound, different harmonics. He always did instrumentally more interesting musical things than supposedly popularise soprano.  Of course I'm not equally keen on everything Steve Lacy played and recorded. 
Forget popularise and think what the musicians did with the straight horn. Branford Marsalis even transposes Ben Webster to the soprano. 


       
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