Lost in June

Apparently “lost” after the concert took place on June 4th, 1977 – the three musicians knew that “someone” in the Teatro Lirico that evening had recorded the entire performance, but could NOT locate the tape anywhere, hence the title “Lost in June” — it had actually been preserved in that “someone’s” music collection for years.

In addition, no one could have foreseen that, someday, Andrea Centazzo would spend two weeks in my NYC home during the Ictus Festival at The Stone (01-14 April 2012), celebrating his label’s 35th Anniversary. Likewise, no one could have imagined that, the day before the Steve Lacy tribute took place on Friday the 13th (Thelonious and Steve were both there in spirit that evening, for sure!), we talked about “CLANGS”, “IN CONCERT” and “TAO” – the three remarkable Ictus albums documenting the (regretfully) rather short-lived creative output of these daring duo and trio. I casually mentioned to Andrea the music of that June 1977 concert in Milano, which he believed was totally “lost,” since he had no knowledge of its whereabouts, and thus had never heard it with a listener’s ears before… He was in for a major surprise.

But that’s not all… No one in 1977 could have predicted that the music world would shockingly – some 27 years later, precisely on that very same date, June 4th) – have “lost” the great Steve Lacy, all of a sudden, barely hours before his much anticipated 13th Japan Tour. And lastly, no one could have thought – the writing of these liner notes suggested in April by Andrea being postponed several times by unforeseeable exigencies – that these words, reflecting on life and on the eternal friendship between Steve Lacy and a few of his closest “associates,” would just flow out spontaneously this afternoon like the music heard that magical evening at the Teatro Lirico, today’s date being … June 4th, 2012.

This album is also available for digital purchase on ictusrecords.bandcamp.com: