The latest red envelope from Netflix in my mailbox contained the DVD Steve Lacy: Master of the Soprano Sax. It’s the same documentary as the one titled Lift the Bandstand, released some 10 or so years earlier. Watching the DVD made me think of the history of my Lacy listening experiences, and of course, of the man himself.

The DVD is essential for anyone who wants to get a sense of how Lacy fits into 20C jazz history, his style, his personality, and just how mesmerising his band was (Irene Aebi, Steve Potts, Bobby Few, Jean-Jacques Avenel, Oliver Johnson, and Lacy) in live performances. The interview was conducted in the late 1980s. Lacy takes the faceless interviewer, and the viewer, through his early childhood in a musical family, his discovery of jazz, his apprenticeship with various bandleaders, on to his more advanced tutelage under Cecil Taylor and Thelonious Monk. Rare footage of Sidney Bechet (Lacy’s introduction to the soprano sax) and Coltrane (himself introduced to the possibilities of the instrument while watching Lacy perform) playing is included on the disc. Finally, Lacy brings his story up through the 60s, where he started a combo with Roswell Rudd devoted entirely to the exploration of Monk’s compositions, and later, when it became impossible to survive as a musician in New York, his move to Europe. Strangely missing is the 1970s, which is a pivotal period for Lacy. This is the decade where he first decided to perform and record solo, being the second sax player (Anthony Braxton did it first with For Alto) to attempt such a thing. He also began to experiment with low-tech electronics, played with Derek Bailey for the first time, and joined the avant-garde group Musica Elettronica Viva.

I first encountered Lacy’s music in either 1998 or 1999, going to a concert of his in Buffalo on a whim. I was so blown away by the performance that I bought Five Facings and Weal and Woe the next day. The latter very much appealed to my musical sensibilities at the time (skronk and chaos), while the former became something I would play when calmness was desired. (These days, I’m glad to have a copy of Weal and Woe, but don’t often have the urge, or the nerve, to put it on, but I think Five Facings ranks among my top 10 most-played discs.)

I’m a fair-weather fan much of the time, slipping into intense love affairs with the music of both mainstream and “out-there” artists, and then just as quickly losing the thread. The times where the thread hasn’t been dropped are rare. Something about Lacy’s music shook me to the core. I kept buying his discs; there was no dearth of them! Between record stores in Rochester and Buffalo, NY, and occasional trips to Toronto, I was never hungry for very long. By the summer of 2002, I’ll bet I had around 40 Lacy CDs, including solo and duet recordings (he recorded a number of duets with pianist Mal Waldron, and quite a few other one-time-only duets with other musicians), and recordings of bands of various sizes of which Lacy was the leader. The summer of 2002 isn’t an arbitrary marking point; that’s when I sold almost all of my compact discs to partially finance an extended trip to Belgium. Including the Lacy discs. (To be continued.)