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19-489: Disposability is the fifth album by Steve Lacy and was released on the Italian RCA label in 1966 featuring three tunes written by Thelonious Monk , one by Cecil Taylor , one by Carla Bley and four by Lacy performed by Lacy, Aldo Romano and Kent Carter . The Allmusic review awarded the album 4 stars. Steve Lacy (saxophonist) Steve Lacy (born Steven Norman Lackritz ; July 23, 1934 – June 4, 2004)

38-786: A B.M. degree (1979) from the New England Conservatory of Music , where he studied jazz improvisation and composition with Ran Blake , George Russell , and Jaki Byard , and horn with Thomas Newell. He also studied briefly in 1976 with jazz horn pioneer Julius Watkins . Varner also holds an M.A. (2005) from the City College of New York , where he studied with Jim McNeely , Scott Reeves, and John Patitucci . He has performed and recorded with Steve Lacy , Dave Liebman , George Gruntz , John Zorn , Bobby Watson , La Monte Young , Miles Davis with Quincy Jones , Bobby Previte , Jim McNeely , McCoy Tyner , Reggie Workman ,

57-437: A highly distinctive composer, with compositions often built out of little more than a single questioning phrase, repeated several times. The music of Thelonious Monk became a permanent part of Lacy's repertoire after a stint in the pianist's band, with Monk's works appearing on virtually every Lacy album and concert program; Lacy often partnered with trombonist Roswell Rudd in exploring Monk's work. Beyond Monk, Lacy performed

76-457: A large ensemble (e.g. Vespers , Soul Note, 1993, which added Ricky Ford on tenor sax and Tom Varner on French horn), sometimes pared down to a quartet, trio, or even a two-saxophone duo. He played duos with pianist Eric Watson . Lacy also, beginning in the 1970s, became a specialist in solo saxophone; he ranks with Sonny Rollins , Anthony Braxton , Evan Parker , and Lol Coxhill in the development of this demanding form of improvisation. Lacy

95-543: A visit to Copenhagen in the company of Kenny 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 Forest and the Zoo , ESP, 1967). After a brief return to 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

114-457: A widely respected figure on the European jazz scene, though he remained less well known in the U.S. The core of Lacy's activities from the 1970s to the 1990s was his sextet: his wife, singer/violinist Irene Aebi , soprano/alto saxophonist Steve Potts , pianist Bobby Few , bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel , and drummer Oliver Johnson (later John Betsch ). Sometimes this group was scaled up to

133-587: Is for a tentet of three brass, five reeds, and bass and drums. His newest CD, Nine Surprises , is for a nonet of three brass, four reeds, and bass and drums, and was released in Fall 2014. It features Seattle players Mark Taylor, Steve Treseler, Eric Barber, Jim DeJoie, Thomas Marriott, David Marriott, Phil Sparks, and Byron Vannoy. Varner lived in New York City from 1979 to 2005, and now lives in Seattle . He

152-914: The Jack Straw Foundation , Seattle's 4Culture, National Endowment for the Arts , the Chamber Music America/Doris Duke Foundation, and has been a resident at the MacDowell , Blue Mountain Center, and Centrum arts colonies. Varner's first two recordings as a leader were influenced by Ornette Coleman , Steve Lacy , Charles Mingus , Anthony Braxton , and minimalists such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass , and featured Varner's horn with alto sax (Ed Jackson), bass (Fred Hopkins or Ed Schuller) and drums (Billy Hart), with no chordal instrument. His third recording

171-706: The avant-garde , performing on Jazz Advance (1956), the debut album of Cecil 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 and Quartet in Concert album (Columbia, 1963). Lacy's first visit to Europe came in 1965, with

190-585: The Mingus Orchestra, Franz Koglmann, and appears on more than 70 albums. He also has 13 albums out as a composer/leader, with sidemen such as Steve Wilson, Tony Malaby, Ed Jackson, Ellery Eskelin, Tom Rainey, Cameron Brown, Drew Gress, Matt Wilson, Kenny Barron , Victor Lewis , Fred Hopkins, and Billy Hart . Varner has been in the Down Beat Critics Poll Top Ten annually since the mid-1990s. He has been awarded grants from

209-480: The Poetry Project Newsletter, "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." In 1992, he was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship (nicknamed the "genius grant"). He also collaborated with a wide range of musicians, from traditional jazz to

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228-717: The United States in 2002, where he began teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston , Massachusetts . 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 . After Lacy was diagnosed with liver cancer in August 2003, he continued playing and teaching until weeks before his death on June 4, 2004, at

247-483: The age of 69. Compilations With Area With Miles Davis With Gil Evans With Giorgio Gaslini With Globe Unity Orchestra With Roswell Rudd With Dick Sutton With Cecil Taylor With Giovanni Tommaso With others Tom Varner Varner grew up in Millburn, New Jersey , and studied piano in his youth with Capitola Dickerson of Summit, New Jersey . He holds

266-687: The avant-garde to contemporary classical music. Outside of his regular sextet, his most regular collaborator was pianist Mal Waldron , with whom he recorded a number of duet albums (notably Sempre Amore , a collection of Ellington/Strayhorn material, Soul Note, 1987). Lacy played his 'farewell concerts to Europe' in Belgium, in duo and solo, for a small but motivated public. This happened in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges and Mons . In duo he played with Fred Van Hove, Joëlle Léandre, Mikhail Bezverkhni, Irène Aebi, Frederic Rzewski, Christopher Culpo and

285-468: The dancer Shiro Daimon. This recollection is published by Naked Music, Afkikker, Ghent. In Ghent he played with the classical violinist Mikhail Bezverkhni, winner of Queen Elisabeth Concours. Two of these concerts were organized by Rita De Vuyst, his last muse in Europe, to whom he dedicated his solo CD Mother Goose solo @ afkikker. This CD is published within the book, Bone , a tribute to Lacy. He returned to

304-475: 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 began his career at sixteen playing Dixieland 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 like Buck Clayton , Dicky Wells , and Jimmy Rushing . He then became involved with

323-589: Was a more "straight-ahead" jazz project, with Kenny Barron, Jim Snidero , Mike Richmond, and Victor Lewis. The fourth project was a Sonny Rollins -influenced trio of horn, bass (Mike Richmond) and drums (Bobby Previte). From that point (1987) on, most of Varner's work as a leader was for a quintet of horn and two saxes, bass, and drums, with frequent guest artists augmenting the ensembles. Varner has combined contemporary chamber music with jazz and free improvisation in almost all of his subsequent projects. His recent work (finished in 2008, released 2009), Heaven and Hell,

342-403: Was an American jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone . Coming to prominence in the 1950s as a progressive dixieland musician, Lacy went on to a long and prolific career. He worked extensively in experimental jazz and to a lesser extent in free improvisation , but Lacy's music was typically melodic and tightly-structured. Lacy also became

361-489: Was interested in all the arts: the visual arts and poetry in particular became important sources for him. Collaborating with painters and dancers in multimedia projects, he made musical settings of his favourite writers: Robert Creeley , Samuel Beckett , Tom Raworth , Taslima Nasrin , Herman Melville , Brion Gysin and other Beat writers, including settings for the Tao Te Ching and haiku poetry. As Creeley noted in

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