Steve Lacy/Don Cherry: Evidence (180g, 2 bonus tracks) [WAX TIME]

Why you'll love it

A 180g Wax Time pressing of Evidence with two bonus tracks added. It pairs Steve Lacy's soprano saxophone with Don Cherry's trumpet, recorded while Cherry was still playing in Ornette Coleman's quartet, and four of the six tunes are Thelonious Monk's.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Two bonus tracks added to the original six
• Wax Time reissue

About the album

Steve Lacy spent a good part of his career making the case that Thelonious Monk's tunes were the best material in jazz, and Evidence is one of the early, persuasive drafts. Cut for Prestige's New Jazz label, it puts Lacy's straight soprano alongside Don Cherry's pocket trumpet, with Carl Brown on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. Higgins had played with both Monk and Coleman, which makes him something like the ideal referee.

Four of the tunes are Monk's ("Evidence", "Let's Cool One", "San Francisco Holiday" and "Who Knows") and two are lesser-known Ellington pieces, "The Mystery Song" and the Strayhorn co-write "Something to Live For". AllMusic's Al Campbell noted that Cherry was just as at home in Monk's angular world as in Coleman's freer one, and the two horns weave around each other with real warmth. It's a short, clear-eyed record that rewards close listening without asking you to do homework first.

The record also catches Cherry right before his own path took off, so it doubles as a snapshot of two very individual players meeting on common ground. We'd file it under essential, then file it again, because someone always borrows it.

Cherry proved capable of playing outside the jagged lines he formulated with Coleman.
Al Campbell, AllMusic

Tracklist

Listen

Out September 18, 2026 on Wax Time, a reissue of the 1962 album.