Steve Lacy

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

People don’t want to suffer. They want to sound good immediately and this is one of the biggest problems.

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

Jazz musician is a combination entertainer, poet, singer, educator, student, artist, seducer and all-round good fellow.

Risk is at the heart of Jazz. Every note we play is a risk.

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

My dream is to do whatever I want without any interference from the record company.

If you want to be a musician, study your craft. Study music.

Blow your life through your horn.

Damn it, when I’m bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic: take it or leave it.

I decided that I would be one of the biggest new names; and I actually had some little fancy business cards printed up to announce it, ‘Count Basie. Beware, the Count is Here.

I hate to think of Jazz as black and white, something political.

Jazz is all about improvisation and it’s about the moment in time, doing it this way now, and you’ll never do it this way twice. I’ve studied the masters. Why would I want to play ball after the guys who sit on a bench? I want to play like Michael Jordan.

Typically I go in the studio and whatever I’m contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don’t come in with lyrics… I just go in and let it happen.

If you got up on the bandstand at Minton’s and couldn’t play, you might get your ass kicked.

When you listen to a pianist, each notes should have an identity, each note should have a soul of its own.

I still insist that American performers are the best performers in the world.

Play the music not the instrument.

What I’m doing, I prefer to call that jazz, because it is a beautiful word – I love it.

Music comes from the moment, it is spontaneous, it exists at the time it is created.

The reward for playing Jazz is playing Jazz.