Steve Lacy

“Steve Lacy: Conversations is a notable work that deepens our understanding of a jazz legend whose reputation in the United States derived from fragmentary bulletins published infrequently in American jazz magazines. Aside from being a must-read for people who follow Lacy’s music, Steve Lacy: Conversations will also help illuminate Lacy’s place in the jazz canon.” - Vernon Frazer, American Book Review

“[A] heart-rending, ear- and eye-opening book. It is a knock-out, an omelette aux fines herbes, an impeccable Lacy line of weird angles and implied major seconds. A bag full of Dixie, borscht-belt air, Cecil Taylor, Thelonious Monk, Gil Evans, Musica Elettronica Viva, the road, Rome, Paris, New York, Asia, Boston, backstage philosophy, painters, poets and corduroy. A life of roaming music lessons on stage and in the streets, in museums and at home—compositions all, that most professors have long excluded from their curriculae. No sour grapes nor sentimental journey in this book, just the pure straight dope.” - Alvin Curran, New York Times

“As far back as I can remember, Steve Lacy has represented the sound of the soprano saxophone. Influenced by Sidney Bechet, he has in turn influenced every player of the soprano. His music has always been very personal, and always in search of new paths.” - Lee Konitz, Jazz Magazine (Paris)

“Editor Jason Weiss has changed the academic landscape of jazz with Steve Lacy: Conversations, the book I always wanted but never had. Weiss’s text includes a huge amount of interviews never published in English, in addition to the usual suspects (Corbett, Ratliff, Derek Bailey, and the Wire). Conversations also contains rare photographs, scores, liner notes and free-association jottings to flesh out the complete package.” - Clifford Allen, All About Jazz

“I have always admired Steve’s perseverance and commitment to perfecting his art. . . . He is the prime example of someone who has fought for artistic integrity.” - Sonny Rollins, Jazz Magazine (Paris)

“The interviews constantly surprise and delight, whether the perspective is shop talk (Lacy speculates whether there’s a spirit in a reed) or broad cultural analysis (he sheepishly admits that rock music literally makes him sick).” - Lawrence Cosentino, Signal to Noise

“There’s no way simply to make clear how particular Steve Lacy was to poets or how much he can now teach them by fact of his own practice and example. No one was ever more generous or perceptive. . . . Steve opened a lot for me in the most quiet way. Music was only the beginning.” - Robert Creeley, Poetry Project Newsletter

“This is an exemplary project, carefully planned, lovingly assembled and handsomely produced. Conversations is a fitting tribute to a giant of modern jazz.” - Stuart Kremsky, International Association of Jazz Record Collectors Journal

“Weiss’s cogent introductions to each interview effectively fill in the chronology of Lacy’s life and contextualize his evolution as a musician. . . . An interview with The Wire . . ., a John Corbett interview in Downbeat . . . and an interview with Ben Ratliff all feel like intimate conversations you just happen to have overheard. They are as lovely, offbeat, and surprising as Lacy’s compositions.” - Stephanie Hanson, Bookforum

"This well-illustrated and attractively produced book collects interviews with Lacy and presents them chronologically. . . . [A] fitting tribute to one of the supreme masters of [the pure improvised] movement." - Andy Hamilton, The Wire

“A phenomenal interviewee. . . . Whether [Steve Lacy] was making bold predictions on future directions of the music, describing his fascinating projects, laying forth broad challenges to himself and other artists, or making succinct observations of the musical world he inhabited, Lacy’s words proved to be almost as interesting as his music.” - Down Beat, on inducting Lacy into the Down Beat Hall of Fam

“Steve Lacy’s soul-rending sounds emerge out of the chaos of our times like the announcement of the beautiful nonviolent anarchist revolution. In the passionate intelligence of his compositions, every note is the sound of freedom.” - Judith Malina, actress, writer, and co-founder of the Living Theatre