Creativity Quote by Steve Lacy

There is a swagger hiding inside that plainspoken loneliness. Steve Lacy isn`t recounting a heroic origin story so much as describing a market inefficiency in sound: the soprano sax was sitting there, culturally unclaimed, and that absence created space for a life. The first sentence lands like reportage from a scene he has already audited: nobody is playing it, nobody is even imagining a future for it. The repetition of "nobody" isn`t just emphasis; it sketches a musical ecosystem where attention, not talent, decides what counts as viable.

Then comes the twist: "So I was all alone. I didn`t know that at first". That last clause is the key to Lacy`s self-mythology. It undercuts any fantasy that he chose isolation as a brand. He stumbled into it before he understood the consequences, which is exactly how real artistic commitment often happens: you pick a tool because it fascinates you, and only later realize it has quietly exiled you from the main road. The subtext is both liberating and brutal. Being early means being ignored; being ignored means you get to invent the rules.

In context, Lacy is speaking from the mid-century jazz world, where the soprano had slipped into novelty status between Sidney Bechet and the later Coltrane revival. Lacy frames his path not as rebellion for its own sake, but as devotion to a neglected voice. The intent feels almost practical: if no one is building a language for this instrument, someone has to. And if you`re "all alone", you don`t get to hide behind trends.