Search - Steve Lacy :: Five Facings

Lacy Duets with Avant-Garde Pianists=Major Inaccessibility?

Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 06/15/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Not!! And was I surprised. To look at this session: FMP, Avant-Garde personified, Lacy, iconoclast soprano sax genius--a perfect formula for inaccessible weird jazz. Well, that's exactly NOT what's going on here.OK, your average Kenny G fan isn't going to go gaga over this, but neither is your mainstream jazz aficionado gonna freak.Listen closely and you'll hear the most nuanced soprano jazz sax voicings currently in play. Steve Lacy is the bomb. How he gets poignancy and grit from his no-vibrato approach is just this side of astounding. But he does.He's always been one of the more remarkable interpreters of Monk, but on this CD he goes far beyond simple Monk genuflection: He gets into some kinda post-Monk vibe where he evokes him but transcends him all at once. Really, this is remarkable music, open, raw, honest, tightrope-walking jazz that should be ingonored only at the risk of total ostrich-head-burying."

The finest

leo | Beijing, China | 09/07/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"a sweet simplicity which hides a lifetime's worth of understanding, sophistication, and technique.



this series of duo performances are all from 1996, and is one of my all time favorites - if the phrase "desert island" is mentioned this is one of the first discs I grab. i love this later work more than the wild 70s or the classic 50s and 60s - during this period he truly reached a pinacle, a zenith, the highest levels of artistic acheivement - a perfect synthesis of invention, expression, and tradition. this is intellectual music as endearing as lullabies, high-art as tasty as mom's cooking - scholarly sophistication at the service of every-day pleasure.



Steve Lacy has described his sound as inspired by bird songs, the speech of stuttering children struggling with language, or the patterns of stars on a clear night."

Lacy is great, As Usual

dig-it-the-most | New York | 07/06/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Nice African flavor with Crispell on The Crust , Monk is always happening with Misha, Ulrich has always been a strong duet with Lacy, and the others are new. The performance with Van Hove is especially a coup."