Frank Lacy

Frank Lacy, also known as Ku-umba Frank Lacy, is a Houston-born trombonist and multi-instrumentalist who has been a mainstay of New Yorks Mingus Big Band for more than three decades. Born in 1958, he studied at Berklee College of Music and built a career that bridges the avant-garde and the mainstream, working with Henry Threadgill, Lester Bowie, and Oliver Lake as readily as with Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, and Roy Hargrove. He served as music director for Art Blakeys Jazz Messengers and has lent his trombone and voice to recordings well beyond jazz, including sessions with DAngelo and Erykah Badu. A singer as well as a brass player, he leads his own quartet on the New York scene.