Creativity Quote by Steve Lacy

“You have to sound sad first of all, then maybe later you can sound good” is Steve Lacy turning a musician’s vanity inside out. He isn’t romanticizing misery; he’s describing the real entry fee to making honest sound. “Sad” here functions less like an emotion and more like a tone of humility: the willingness to let the first drafts be naked, awkward, unprotected by polish.

Lacy came up in a jazz world that prized swagger and velocity, where “good” could mean impressive, correct, fast. He’s arguing that “good” in the deeper sense arrives only after you’ve stopped trying to win. The sadness is the moment you realize your horn won’t save you, your chops won’t substitute for a point of view. It’s the bruise of hearing yourself clearly, without the fantasy soundtrack. That’s why it’s “first of all”: before technique can communicate, it has to be stripped of self-deception.

There’s also a sly warning to young players chasing surface excellence. If you start by “sounding good,” you may never need to risk anything. Sadness is risk. It’s space, breath, vulnerability, the courage to play something that might land as thin or broken. In Lacy’s austere, searching soprano style, that ethos is audible: pared down lines that refuse to entertain you out of guilt. He’s saying the music that lasts usually begins as a kind of confession, and only later earns the right to be beautiful.