Steve Lacy - The Straight Horn of Steve Lacy

The “straight horn” referred to in the title of this superb album from 1961 is the soprano saxophone, and Lacy is recognized as one of the greatest to ever play the instrument, ranking alongside John Coltrane and Sidney Bechet.  Because of the difficulty involved in mastering it’s pitch challenges, very few jazzmen concentrated on it.  Lacy is widely considered the first “modern” musician to specialize on the instrument.

Lacy had long and prolific career and a fascinating style trajectory.  At sixteen he began playing Dixieland with the likes of Pee Wee Russell.  In the mid 1950’s he played free jazz with Cecil Taylor, and appeared with his groundbreaking quartet at the 1957 New Port Jazz Festival.  He made a notable appearance on the 1959 Gil Evens, Great Jazz Standards album.  Along the way, Lacy became obsessed with the music of Thelonious Monk, working with him several times including the 1963 Big Band and Quartet in Concert album, and devoted much of this life’s work to the interpretation of Monk’s materiel.

Only the third session with Lacy as a band leader, The Straight Horn album features three Monk compositions, along side two from Cecil Taylor and Charlie Parker’s (or Miles Davis’, depending on who you believe) “Donna Lee”.

The date shows how masterful Lacy was out of the gate, and demonstrates his knack for taking abstract pieces by composers like Monk and Taylor and re-interpreting them in his own unique way. Lacy is able to keep the songs unmistakably identifiable, while transforming them in a way that showcases his own playing.

Recorded at the Nola Penthouse Studios in New Your City in November of 1960, the album includes extraordinary liner notes by Candid A&R man and producer Nat Hentoff, and jazz writer and critic Martin Wiliams, giving a context and insight that adds to the experience of hearing these extraordinary performances.