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" 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
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" 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. "
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" What I learned with Cecil Taylor was strategy and survival and how to resist temptations and resist getting discouraged. "
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" Circumstances can be very important. Find the right people to work with. "
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" It starts with a single sound. If there's something in that sound, then it's worth continuing. "
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" We played for peanuts. But we did what we wanted to do, we heard what we wanted to hear, we performed what we wanted to perform, we learned what we wanted to learn. "
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" Some people really want to play Mozart and be just performers. I was more interested in invention. "
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" Register is very important. Music sounds best in a certain register. "
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" Risk is at the heart of jazz. Every note we play is a risk. "
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" The saxophone is a very interesting machine, but I'm more interested in music. "
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" 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. "
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Here
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" I think it is in collaboration that the nature of art is revealed. "
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Art
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" 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. "
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Play
Want
You
" The soprano turned out to sound to me like the right hand on the piano. "
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Sound
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" Jazz is like wine. When it is new, it is only for the experts, but when it gets older, everybody wants it. "
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Only
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" It's very important to go through periods where you sound just rotten and you know it, and you have to persevere or give up. "
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Through
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" You have to sound sad first of all, then maybe later you can sound good. "
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Sad
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" 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. "
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Play
Now
Alone
" Play difficult and interesting things. If you play boring things, you risk losing your appetite. Saxophone can be tedious with too much of the same. "
Steve Lacy
Interesting
Losing
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" The potential for the saxophone is unlimited. "
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Unlimited
Potential
" Whoever has an original thing to say, it is sort of a threat to the status quo. "
Steve Lacy
Sort
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Status
" I wanted to be a pianist but it just wasn't my thing. I guess I wanted to stand up rather than sit down. "
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" I was spoiled by Monk's music because it was so good, so complete. "
Steve Lacy
Music
Monk
Good
" 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. "
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People
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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. "
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Sharks
Language
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" If you're trying to invent something new, you're going to reach a lot of discouraging points, and most people give up. "
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Going
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People
" You must have the music to justify an instrument's extensive use. "
Steve Lacy
You
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" Before the work comes to you, you have to invent work. "
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You
Work
Invent
" 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. "
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Place
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Club
" You can work on the saxophone alone, but ultimately you must perform with others. "
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" 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. "
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Saxophone