Steve Lacy

Doubtless, Steve Lacy is one of contemporary music’s most prolific practitioners – and certainly one of the most recorded. But even within a catalogue as bulging and varied as his, this sequence of Songs is a singular experience... Throughout these remarkable Songs the music is inseparable from the words. Extramusical echoes may occur – for example, the melismatic winding of themes in “Gay Paree Bop” and “Somebody Special” may suggest Gysin’s Moroccan excursions. Or they may not. It doesn’t matter. What matters is their emotional resonance and unity of feeling, as urgent and accessible as those of Schubert transported to an age of anxiety. — Art Lange