HUMBERTO AMORIM - JAZZ IS TIMELESS

O saxofonista e compositor de jazz Steve Lacy nasceu em Nova York no 23 de julho de 1934, com o nome Steven Lackritz Norman..
Steve Lacy acompanhou principalmente Sidney bechet e John Coltrane. Iniciou sua carreira com o jazz tradicional, Dixieland, antes de se iniciar no "free jazz" com Cecil Taylor, que o apresentou a Thelonious Monk que estabeleceu uma enorme influência em sua carreira e com quem ele gravou o album "Reflections" onde constam apenas as composições de Monk, e tocou na sua banda e big band. Viveu muito tempo na Europa, tendo como base Paris.

Lacy retornou para os Estados Unidos em 2002 e passou a ensinar musica no New England Conservatory of Music em Boston.

Uma de suas últimas apresentações publicas, deu-se diante de uma platéia de 25,000 mil pessoas, no final de uma passeata pela paz em 2003, depois da invasão do Iraque pelos Estados Unidos.

Steve Lacy permaneceu lecionando e tocando até poucas semanas antes de sua morte, aos 69 anos em Boston, em 2004.

Discografia Recomendada
Evidence,1961.
Wordless - 1971.
Scrups,1974.
Sands, 1998 .
Sempre Amore avec Mal Waldron.

Click aqui para ve-lo atuando com o seu sax soprano em Praga.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrXOTSXbYLw

Steve Lacy, born Steven Norman Lackritz in New York, on July 23,1934, was a jazz soprano saxophonist.
Lacy began his career at sixteen playing Dixilieland music with much older musicians such as Henry "Red" Allen, Pee Wee Russell, George "Pops" Foster and Zutty Singleton and then with Kansas City jazz players likeBuck Clayton,Dicky Wells and Jimmy Rushing. He then became involved with theavant-garde, performing onJazz Advance (1956), the debut album ofCecil Taylor, and appearing with Taylor's groundbreaking quartet at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival; he also made a notable appearance on an early Gil Evans album. His most enduring relationship, however, was with the music of Thelonious Monk: he recorded the first album to feature only Monk compositions "Reflections", Prestige, 1958) and briefly played in Monk's band in 1960 and later on Monk's Big Band/Quartet album (Columbia, 1963).

Monk tunes became a permanent part of his repertoire, making an appearance in virtually every concert appearance and on albums, and Lacy often collaborated with trombonist Roswell Rudd in presenting interpretations of Monk's compositions.

Beyond Monk, he performed the work of jazz composers such as Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington and Herbie Nichols; unlike many jazz musicians he rarely played standard popular or show tunes. Lacy also became a highly distinctive composer with a signature simplicity of style: a Lacy composition is often built out of little more than a single questioning phrase, repeated several times. In the 1960s he continued to work with other players involved in the American free-jazz avant-garde and, in the 1970s, the European free improvisation scene, and free improvisation remained an important element in his work thereafter.
Lacy's first visit to Europe came in 1965, with a visit to Copenhagen in the company ofKenny Drew; he went to Italy and formed a quartet with Italian trumpeter Enrico Rava and the South African musicians Johnny Dyani and Louis Moholo (their visit to Buenos Aires is documented on the album "The Forest and the Zoo", ESP, 1967). After a brief return in New York, he returned to Italy, then in 1970 moved to Paris, where he lived until the last two years of his life. He became a widely respected figure on the European jazz scene, though he remained less well-known in the U.S.
Lacy returned to the United States in 2002, where he began teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. One of his last public performances was in front of 25,000 people at the close of a peace rally on Boston Common in March 2003, shortly before the

US-led invasion of Iraq.
Lacy was diagnosed with cancer in August 2003, he continued playing and teaching until weeks before his death at the age of 69.

Reference - Wikipédia

Tradução- Humberto Amorim