"Play difficult and interesting things. If you play boring things, you risk losing your appetite. Saxophone can be tedious with too much of the same"
About this Quote
Lacy is talking like a working musician who’s spent enough nights onstage to know boredom isn’t an abstract aesthetic problem; it’s a career-killer. “Appetite” is the key word. He frames creativity as hunger: a physical, daily need that can be dulled by routine. It’s not moralizing about “challenging yourself” so much as a warning about self-preservation. If the player isn’t curious, the music won’t be either, and the audience will feel the drop in voltage.
The line also carries a sly jab at the saxophone’s trapdoor reputation: an instrument that can sound like revelation or like a warmed-over imitation of revelation. “Too much of the same” points to the clichés that settle in when a scene rewards predictability - the safe licks, the familiar changes, the crowd-pleasing squeals. Lacy, a modernist who made his name pushing against received jazz grammar, is really advocating for continual reinvention as a discipline, not a personality trait. Difficulty here isn’t macho virtuosity; it’s the productive difficulty of new problems: odd forms, unfamiliar harmonies, uncomfortable silences, tunes that force you to listen harder than you play.
Context matters: Lacy came up in an era when the saxophone was both a passport (bebop authority) and a stereotype (endless blowing). His advice reads like a manifesto for avoiding autopilot. Keep the material interesting, or the instrument turns into a treadmill - and sooner or later, you stop wanting to run.
The line also carries a sly jab at the saxophone’s trapdoor reputation: an instrument that can sound like revelation or like a warmed-over imitation of revelation. “Too much of the same” points to the clichés that settle in when a scene rewards predictability - the safe licks, the familiar changes, the crowd-pleasing squeals. Lacy, a modernist who made his name pushing against received jazz grammar, is really advocating for continual reinvention as a discipline, not a personality trait. Difficulty here isn’t macho virtuosity; it’s the productive difficulty of new problems: odd forms, unfamiliar harmonies, uncomfortable silences, tunes that force you to listen harder than you play.
Context matters: Lacy came up in an era when the saxophone was both a passport (bebop authority) and a stereotype (endless blowing). His advice reads like a manifesto for avoiding autopilot. Keep the material interesting, or the instrument turns into a treadmill - and sooner or later, you stop wanting to run.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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