Steve Lacy

The potential for the saxophone is unlimited.

They call me before they go into production, when they have a prototype, and they call legitimate saxophonists, too. As opposed to the other kind.

It's very important to go through periods where you sound just rotten and you know it, and you have to persevere or give up.

When I have to compete with John Coltrane and Miles Davis and Louie Armstrong on iTunes, which I'm doing now, that's a problem. That means that jazz is not being heard by younger audiences.

A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.

I always dreamed of writing in an orchestral context. But when you finish a piece, you want to hear it. So we played everything with Phish.