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" Circumstances can be very important. Find the right people to work with. "
Steve Lacy
Circumstances
People
Important
Related Quotes:
" Register is very important. Music sounds best in a certain register. "
Steve Lacy
Sounds
Music
Important
" I've always been extremely lucky in playing with great people who knew much more than I did. That's how I got from there to here. "
Steve Lacy
Here
Great
Lucky
" Some people really want to play Mozart and be just performers. I was more interested in invention. "
Steve Lacy
Want
Some People
People
" You must have the music to justify an instrument's extensive use. "
Steve Lacy
You
Must
Music
" If you have music you want to play that no one asks you to play, you have to go out and find where you can play it. It's called do or die. "
Steve Lacy
Play
Want
You
" Saxophone is one thing, and music is another. "
Steve Lacy
Music
One Thing
Another
" I started in New Orleans music and played all through the history of jazz. "
Steve Lacy
New
New Orleans
Music
" Before the work comes to you, you have to invent work. "
Steve Lacy
You
Work
Invent
" 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. "
Steve Lacy
New
Love
Jazz
" 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
People
Monk
Original
" I've been working on the soprano saxophone for 40 years, and the possibilities are astounding. It's up to you, the only limit is the imagination. "
Steve Lacy
Imagination
Limit
Possibilities
" Kenny G, I have to be grateful to him for proving that the instrument can be played all different kinds of ways. "
Steve Lacy
Different
Him
Be Grateful
" The saxophone is a very interesting machine, but I'm more interested in music. "
Steve Lacy
Music
Saxophone
More
" 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
People
Body
Music
" Nobody was playing the soprano saxophone and certainly nobody was trying to do anything with it. So I was all alone. I didn't know that at first. "
Steve Lacy
Know
Alone
Saxophone
" 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
Me
Reed
Spirit
" You have to sound sad first of all, then maybe later you can sound good. "
Steve Lacy
Sad
Good
First
" You can work on the saxophone alone, but ultimately you must perform with others. "
Steve Lacy
Work
You
Saxophone
" When I found the music of Monk I finally found music that fit that horn. Every one of his tunes fit it perfectly. "
Steve Lacy
Found
Horn
Monk
" Risk is at the heart of jazz. Every note we play is a risk. "
Steve Lacy
Risk
Play
Note
" What I learned with Cecil Taylor was strategy and survival and how to resist temptations and resist getting discouraged. "
Steve Lacy
Discouraged
Strategy
Survival
" The soprano has all those other instruments in it. It's got the soprano song voice, flute, violin, clarinet, and tenor elements and can even approach the baritone in intensity. "
Steve Lacy
Violin
Voice
Song
" I heard Sidney Bechet play a Duke Ellington piece and fell in love with the soprano saxophone. "
Steve Lacy
Saxophone
Play
Love
" 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
Kind
Production
Before
" I've performed solo for 20 years now, but I don't do much of it, because if you only play alone, you go crazy and out of tune and play foolish music. "
Steve Lacy
Play
Now
Alone
" The potential for the saxophone is unlimited. "
Steve Lacy
Saxophone
Unlimited
Potential
" People don't want to suffer. They want to sound good immediately, and this is one of the biggest problems in the world. "
Steve Lacy
Good
World
Want
" If you're trying to invent something new, you're going to reach a lot of discouraging points, and most people give up. "
Steve Lacy
Going
New
People
" 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
Place
Musicians
Club
" 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
Free
Better
You