Only Monk

In his way Steve Lacy could have been an obsessive man. He dedicated himself to the soprano saxophone with the kind of unassuming concentration that a lot of people can only envy, and with particular reference to this album he approached and played the music of Thelonious Monk in a similar fashion. This then is a distillation of those preoccupations, a programme of Lacy playing Monk's music on unaccompanied soprano sax. The setting allows us to get an intimation of his thought processes, and to his credit he approaches each composition with the insight perhaps only afforded to an individual who takes the time that he did.In its way "Humph" encapsulates that time. Lacy coaxes odd intervals out of it but without meandering and in so doing arguably gets closer to the composer's idiosyncratic muse than anyone for whom the performance of Monk's music is merely an attempt at showing how wide their knowledge is."Little Rootie Tootie" has its train whistle in place from the off and such is the starkness of the setting that the listener is afforded a telling glimpse of how downright odd a piece it is. Lacy's variations on it are entirely his own, but such is his appreciation for the writing that the performance hangs together as an exemplary balance between the composer's undoubted individuality and Lacy's artistic licence. To put it plainly, he gets in all manner of personal expression and takes the kind of liberties that only a master of spontaneous form could."Light Blue" exemplifies how Monk's music has to be dealt with on its own terms. Lacy knows this arguably more than most, and he shows it in a performance that gives the piece a lyrical but substantial gloss.But then there was never anything superficial about the music of either Monk or Lacy, so anyone with big ears and an open mind has nothing to fear here.