UB Event to Feature Famous Jazz Musician At The Calumet

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Steve Lacy, internationally renowned as the pioneer of modern jazz soprano saxophone, will perform with his trio at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 20, in the Calumet Arts Cafe, 54 W. Chippewa St., Buffalo, as a University at Buffalo "Wednesdays at 4 Plus Special Event."

Tickets, which will be available at the door the night of the event, are $20 per person for the general public and $10 for UB students, staff and faculty.

Lacy has established a friendship and history of artistic collaboration with UB poet Robert Creeley, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of English, Samuel P. Capen Chair of Poetry and the Humanities, and founder of the "Wednesdays at 4 Plus" literary series.

Lacy first set Creeley's poetry to music at the annual festival for contemporary music held in Lille, France, in a performance called "Futurities." The performance was captured in a two-CD set of the same name.

A tribute to Creeley that was part of a 1993 performance by Lacy in Cambridge, Mass., was described by a critic as "the most inspired and intense playing" of the evening.

Lacy also appeared at the Calumet in 1995 for a night of music that featured a selection of Creeley poems, set to music by Lacy and sung by Irene Aebi.

Like abstract expressionism and modern jazz, Creeley's poems are reductive renderings of precise images and emotions. One of the originators of the "Black Mountain" school of poetry, Creeley was strongly influenced by contemporary visual art and music in forming his poetic technique.

Lacy, who recently toured in Belgium, Italy and Germany, is currently touring extensively in the United States and Canada.