Steve Lacy (1934 to 2004) was an American soprano saxophonist and composer who brought a neglected instrument into modern jazz in the mid 1950s and then devoted his whole life to it. He began in Dixieland, played in Cecil Taylor's first groups, and from the late 1950s built much of his repertoire on Thelonious Monk, whose tunes he studied more closely than anyone. Based in Rome in the late 1960s and in Paris from 1970 to 2002, he wrote hundreds of pieces, many of them settings of poets sung by Irene Aebi, and led a sextet with Steve Potts for decades.

Steve Lacy (1934 to 2004) was an American soprano saxophonist and composer who brought a neglected instrument into modern jazz in the mid 1950s and then devoted his whole life to it. He began in Dixieland, played in Cecil Taylor's first groups, and from the late 1950s built much of his repertoire on Thelonious Monk, whose tunes he studied more closely than anyone. Based in Rome in the late 1960s and in Paris from 1970 to 2002, he wrote hundreds of pieces, many of them settings of poets sung by Irene Aebi, and led a sextet with Steve Potts for decades.