For those unaware, Steve Lacy was a quintessential artist of late modernism. His body of work is ample evidence of his refusal to bypass his forebears in pursuit of so-called ‘innovation.” He had to work through them. He called himself a “materialist,” an idiosyncratic use of the word describing his obsession with the material from which he made his music –– his saxophone as well as the countless artists whose work his oeuvre synthesized.

Through such a crystalizing process, his music grew increasingly singular, while always also paying homage to his antecedents, working through the material of, to name but a few, Sidney Bechet, Thelonious Monk, Mark Rothko, or Samuel Beckett.

“I don’t know if Jean Derome would call himself a “materialist,” but such a Lacyan ethic adheres throughout his own notable body of work,” says Scott Thomson, Montréal [x-25]. “So, it felt apt when he delved into Lacy songs on Somebody Special (2019), which introduced this superb quintet.”

Le sourire represents a deeper dive, extending Jean’s loving attention to the material at hand, with Lacy’s settings of Beckett poems in French (the little-known Sands> suite) at its core. Along the way, the band touches on key elements in Lacy’s vast discography: Rushes and Packet (from which the songs that set Akhmatova and Malina derive) with Irene Aebi and Frederic Rzewski, and the two-volume Futurities, nonet settings of Robert Creeley poems and arguably his finest single-author project.

1. Jack’s Blues [04:15]
2. The Smile [07:39]
3. The Cuckoo [04:39]
4. Sands, 1: Stand [05:20]
5. Sands, 2: Jump [04:48]
6. Sands, 3: Fall [05:57]
7. Love and Politics [06:06]
8. I Heard the Indian Sage [05:40]
9. Morning Joy [06:29]
10. As Usual [05:46]
11. Heaven [05:49]

As the sounds refract through the exquisite poem-lyrics that the music animates, Jean Derome & Somebody Special open their new collective work on the playful Jack’s Blues and the staggered The Smile and then we get the lushly dulcet The Cuckoo and the three-part Sands: the first part being the affecting beauty of Stand, then we get the joyfully vivacious Jump, the set culminating on the hauntingly ethereal Fall.

Along next is the rhythmically paced Love and Politics which is itself backed seamlessly by the jazzy blues vibe of I Heard the Indian Sage, the improvised feel to the layered brilliance of Morning Joy, the music rounding out on the robustly enigmatic As Usual, coming to a close on the artfully hazed Heaven.

Jean Derome & Somebody Special:
Jean Derome, saxophone alto, flûte basse, voix / alto saxophone, bass flute, voice
Karen Young, voix / voice
Alexandre Grogg, piano
Normand Guilbeault, contrebasse / double bass
Pierre Tanguay, batterie / drums

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