A champion and chronicler of avant-garde jazz, Steve Dalachinsky had collaborated with musicians such as William Parker, Matthew Shipp, Susie Ibarra, Roy Campbell and Loren Connors, and wrote liner notes for recordings by, among others, Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, Derek Bailey and Rashied Ali.

Several of his poetry books were dedicated to jazz musicians, written while listening to the subjects’ music in live settings, including The Final Nite & Other Poems: Complete Notes From A Charles Gayle Notebook 1987-2006; Logos and Language: A Post-Jazz Metaphorical Dialogue (in collaboration with Matthew Shipp) and The Mantis (a chapbook inspired by 50 years of Cecil Taylor in performance).

In recent years, Dalachinsky had been invited to memorialise a number of friends who had passed away, speaking at memorials for Ornette Coleman and David S. Ware, among others.