Prince Lasha (1929-2008) and Sonny Simmons are two reed players who, along with others like John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Eric Dolphy, sought to expand the vocabulary of the saxophone and work loose the harmonic and rhythmic structures that by the 60’s, had hardened into well defined styles.
Both came of age in the western U.S. and kept company with many of the iconoclasts of the developing free jazz movement in that region of the country.
Though neither are generally well known, both are great instrumentalists and forward thinkers whose music still sounds very contemporary. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.