Steve Lacy (July 23, 1934 – June 4, 2004), born
Steven Norman Lackritz in
New York City, was a
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 a highly distinctive composer, with compositions often built out of little more than a single questioning phrase, repeated several times.