Wally Shoup (born 1944) is an American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

alto saxophonist The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B tenor ...

and painter. Based in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

since 1985, Shoup is a mainstay of that city's

improvised music Musical improvisation (also known as musical extemporization) is the creative activity of immediate ("in the moment") musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous ...

scene. ''

Seattle Metropolitan ''Seattle Metropolitan'', or ''Seattle Met'', is a monthly city magazine covering Seattle, Washington. Its first issue was published in March 2006, and features reporting and feature articles on Seattle events, politics, people, dining and restaura ...

'' named him one of the 50 most influential musicians in that city's history.Thomas May
Wally Shoup
''Seattle Metropolitan'', December 2008, p. 84. Born in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, and raised in

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont (United States), Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, Meckl ...

,Wally Shoup
Jack Straw Foundation. Notes for a Composer Spotlight presentation March 14, 2007. Accessed online 2009-08-03. Initially working as a schoolteacher,Andrew Bartlett, "Wally Shoup", p. 230–31 in James Bush, ''Encyclopedia of Northwest Music: From Classical Recordings to Classic Rock Performances, Your Guide to the Best of the Region'' (1999), Sasquatch Books. . Shoup moved

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

in the late 1960s,Jason Heller
Get in the Vamp
''Westword'' (Denver, Colorado), 2003-05-22. Accessed online 2009-08-19. then to

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

in 1970. There, he first lived in

Manitou Springs Manitou Springs is a home rule municipality located at the foot of Pikes Peak in western El Paso County, Colorado, United States. The town was founded for its natural mineral springs. The downtown area continues to be of interest to travelers ...

and later in

Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...

. By his own account, Shoup "grew up listening to black music in the South, the

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

and jazz and R&B," was "introduced to free jazz in the late '60s… in Atlanta". Although his "voice is definitely influenced by African-American music" he "kind of felt like free jazz was the domain of black musicians." Hearing Britain's Music Improvisation Company, "he simultaneously discovered

free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician(s) involved. The term can refer to both a technique (employed by any musician in any genre) and as a recognizable genre in its ...

and his calling as a musician."Biography
Wally Shoup official site at speakeasy.org. Accessed online 2009-09-07. "It wasn't jazz-based," he would say in 2003." They were trying to find some new ways of improvising. I realized ''that'' was the kind of music I wanted to know about, and the only way I could know more about it was by playing it." While in Colorado, Shoup had a three-hour weekly show on

KRCC KRCC (91.5 MHz) is a public radio station in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is owned by Colorado College and operated by Colorado Public Radio. KRCC broadcasts non-commercial News/Talk programming, mostly from National Public Radio (NPR) and ...

, the

Colorado College Colorado College is a private liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was founded in 1874 by Thomas Nelson Haskell in his daughter's memory. The college enrolls approximately 2,000 undergraduates at its campus. The college offer ...

radio station, where by Jason Heller's account (2003) he played jazz and experimental music from his own extensive collection, and "began using the studio itself as an instrument, manipulating multiple turntables and mixing in guest musicians who would improvise over the records…" Describing a band he organized during this period, the Creative Music Ensemble (active circa 1973–74), Shoup later said, "I was still developing some chops on the sax, so I wasn't a player yet; I was just the instigator. I had them play a number of gigs, and it just outraged and pissed people off. … People didn't know what to make of it. It was kind of like

Mahavishnu Mahavishnu (Sanskrit: महाविष्णु) is an aspect of Vishnu, the principal deity in Vaishnavism. In his capacity as Mahavishnu, the deity is known as the Supreme Purusha, the absolute protector and sustainer of the universe, th ...

meets

Merzbow is a Japanese noise project started in 1979 by , best known for a style of harsh, confrontational noise. Since 1980, Akita has released over 400 recordings and has collaborated with various artists. The name Merzbow comes from the German dada ...

or something." In 1975 he became an active organizer, deejay, and player of music merging

free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during ...

, free improvisation and

noise Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference arise ...

. After deciding he was ready to play the saxophone as a performer, he formed his first trio, in Colorado, with Ross Rabin and Keith Gardner, incorporating

contact microphone A contact microphone, also known as a piezo microphone, is a form of microphone that senses audio vibrations through contact with solid objects. Unlike normal air microphones, contact microphones are almost completely insensitive to air vibrat ...

s on metal objects to create "noisescapes." He released his first album, ''Scree-Run Waltz'' in 1981. In 1983 he moved to

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...

where he performed with Trans Duo ( Davey Williams and

LaDonna Smith LaDonna Smith (born 1951) is an American avant garde musician from Alabama. She is a violinist, violist, and pianist. Since 1974 she has been performing free improvisational music with musicians such as Davey Williams (musician), Davey Williams, ...

), wrote for the ''Improvisor'' magazine and worked with dancer Mary Horn, with whom he toured European in 1985, after which he moved to Seattle. Shortly after arriving in Seattle, Shoup became an early organizer of that city's Improvised Music Festival, which began that year, and which is now the United States' longest-running improvised music festival. Among the groups he performed with there were the New Art Orchestra and Catabatics. In 2010 he will participate in and help organize the 25th anniversary Seattle Improvised Music Festival. In 1994 he and

cellist The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D3 ...

Brent Arnold formed Project W, who would eventually open for

Sonic Youth Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City, formed in 1981. Founding members Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar) and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of the b ...

in Seattle in 1998. Writing in 1999, Andrew Bartlett described this as "Shoup's most vaunted ensemble… whose debut CD of the same name on the Apraxia label has become the stuff of legend." Bartlett singled out their emphasis on relatively short pieces as unusual for free improvisors. Shoup has done two

CDs The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Octo ...

with

Thurston Moore Thurston Joseph Moore (born July 25, 1958) is an American musician best known as a member of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Moo ...

of Sonic Youth ''Hurricane Floyd'' (Subliminal, 2000) and ''Live at Tonic'' (Leo Records, 2003) with

Paul Flaherty Paul Andrew Flaherty (March 14, 1964 – March 16, 2006) was an American computer scientist. He was a renowned specialist in Internet protocols and the inventor of the AltaVista search engine. Biography Flaherty was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin ...

and

Chris Corsano Chris Corsano is an American drummer, improviser, and composer. Career Alongside his solo work, Corsano has performed on over one hundred records with artists including Evan Parker, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Six Organs of Admittance, Dredd ...

. He has also made two recordings with

Nels Cline Nels Courtney Cline (born January 4, 1956) is an American guitarist and composer. He has been the guitarist for the band Wilco since 2004. In the 1980s he played jazz, often in collaboration with his twin brother Alex Cline, Alex, a percussionis ...

Wilco Wilco is an American alternative rock band based in Chicago, Illinois. The band was formed in 1994 by the remaining members of alternative country group Uncle Tupelo following singer Jay Farrar's departure. Wilco's lineup changed frequently dur ...

: ''Immolation/Immersion'' (CD, 2005) and ''Suite: Bittersweet'' (LP, 2007), both on Strange Attractors Audio House. Shoup formed the Wally Shoup Trio in 2001 with bassist Reuben Radding and drummer Bob Rees. Speaking of his work in 2003, Shoup said, "I'm not quite as abstract as I used to be. On my new stuff, I'll play motifs and melodies and occasionally even a tune … I see noise as just another element to play with, just another texture or color or detail." More recent projects include Spider Trio (with Jeffery Taylor and Dave Abramson) and the Wally Shoup Quartet (with Gust Burns, Bob Rees and Paul Kikuchi). Among the festivals where Shoup has performed are the

Vancouver Jazz Festival The Vancouver International Jazz Festival is an annual summer event in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The festival grew out of a local jazz scene that centred on Vancouver Co-op Radio ( CFRO-FM), a community radio station, in the early 1980 ...

(

Vancouver, B.C. Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. The ...

), Earshot Jazz Festival (Seattle), Le Weekend (Scotland), Birmingham Improvised Music Festival (

), Seattle Improvised Music Festival and Open-Circuit Interact (Belgium). In 2007 he received a City of Seattle Arts grant in to work on improvised music, and in 2009 ''Seattle Metropolitan Magazine'' named him one of the 50 most influential musicians in that city's history.

Partial discography

* ''Subduction Zone'' (Nunatak, 2012) - trio with

Dennis Rea Dennis Rea (born July 7, 1957) is an American guitarist, author, and music event organizer. He was a member of the electronic music group Earthstar (band), Earthstar in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He leads the progressive rock quintet Morain ...

and Tom Zgonc * ''The Levitation Shuffle'' (Clean Feed Records, 2007) - quartet with Reuben Radding, Greg Campbell, and Gust Burns * ''Bounced Check'' (Tyyfus Records, LP, 2007) - trio with Chris Corsano and Paul Flaherty * ''Suite: Bittersweet'' (Strange Attractors Audio House, LP, 2007) - trio with Nels Cline and Greg Campbell * ''Blue Purge'' (Leo Records, CD, 2004) - trio with Reuben Radding and Bob Rees * ''Confluxus'' (Leo Records, CD, 2004) - trio with Toshi Makihara and Brent Arnold * ''Live at Tonic'' (Leo Records, CD, 2003) - quartet with Thurston Moore, Paul Flaherty, and Chris Corsano * ''Fusillades and Lamentations'' (Leo Records, CD, 2003) - trio with Reuben Radding and Bob Rees * ''Stackpole'' (First World, CD, 2001) - quartet led and recorded by Dennis Rea * ''Hurricane Floyd'' (Sublingual, CD, 2000) - live recording with Thurston Moore and Toshi Makihara * ''Project W'' (Apraxia, CD, 1994) - trio with Brent Arnold and Ed Pias * ''Scree-Run Waltz'' (Too Sound, LP, 1981) - duo with Ross Rabin A more complete discography can be found a
Recordings by Wally Shoup
on Shoup's official site.

Publications

* ''Music As Adventure: The Collected Writings of Wally Shoup'' (2011)
Nine Muses Books

Notes

External links

*
Seattle Improvised Music

Seattle Improvised Music Festival, 2006.
An hour-long set of free improvisation by Shoup
recorded live on

KEXP KEXP-FM (90.3 MHz) is a non-commercial radio station licensed to Seattle, Washington, United States, specializing in alternative and indie rock programmed by its disc jockeys for the Seattle metropolitan area. The station is owned by the non-p ...

's Sonarchy Radio. {{DEFAULTSORT:Shoup, Wally Free jazz saxophonists American jazz saxophonists American male saxophonists Musicians from Seattle 1944 births Living people Musicians from Charlotte, North Carolina Date of birth missing (living people) People from Manitou Springs, Colorado Musicians from Colorado Springs, Colorado 21st-century American saxophonists Jazz musicians from North Carolina Jazz musicians from Colorado 21st-century American male musicians American male jazz musicians Clean Feed Records artists