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Wally Shoup

That Wally Shoup was a man unlikely to experience spectacular commercial success was apparent early. Arriving in Seattle in the mid-’80s, he managed to get some of his painted-silk scarves--with their distinct muted colors and aboriginal-like patterns--into some area boutiques. But then shopkeepers would say, “We want more of these, and we don’t like these,” he recalls. “And I’d say, ‘Well, that’s your opinion.’” Likewise, store reps wanted pieces that customers could order in advance. Shoup’s response: “Well, I’m an artist.” How could he know what he’d come up with tomorrow? Needless to say, Shoup’s future in retail was limited.

Then again, anyone who turns to Shoup for something preordered and prespecified could not be barking up a more poorly chosen tree. Shoup’s entire cellular structure pines for the spontaneous, the unplanned, the unruly. And not just in visual art. For two decades he’s been at the center of Seattle’s free-improvisation scene--a fertile but perpetually obscure underground, where the intense energy and volume of guitar rock meet the open soloing of jazz, but without any formal structures of rhythm or song. It’s always a hard sell, and “the problem is, I’m not a salesman,” says Shoup.

But he’s been doing something right lately, as this fall he’ll have a critical mass of public exposure that’s damn near unprecedented. It starts with a major exhibit of his paintings at Wall of Sound (beginning Oct. 5). Then he’s got a series of shows around town with his trio, courtesy of a city of Seattle grant--the 63-year-old artist’s first. (“I haven’t really participated in the grant game,” he says.) Finally, he’s got a high-profile quartet gig with the Earshot Jazz Festival, Seattle’s invaluable three-week celebration of jazz and world music (Oct. 19-Nov. 4). While Earshot brings in big names from New York and around the globe, the fest also provides home-based artists a more visible platform than they’re typically afforded.

Raised in a North Carolina family that “would not have seen ‘artist’ as a viable way of life,” Shoup says art “eventually just came bursting out of me” in his early 30s, when he picked up both the saxophone and the paintbrush. In recent years, his paintings have been seen most often at Garde-Rail Gallery, Seattle’s home for “outsider” or “folk” artists, many of whom, like Shoup, are from the South. No one would mistake the articulate Shoup for an uneducated rube, but his pieces have an unstudied, “naive” quality to their shapes, colors, and themes. And they bear an earthen texture reminiscent of Jimmy Lee Sudduth--perhaps the most famous in Garde-Rail’s stable--who paints with mud.

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109
Album Review

Wally Shoup Trio: Blue Purge

Read "Blue Purge" reviewed by Germein Linares


The Seattle-based group of alto saxophonist Wally Shoup, bassist Reuben Radding, and drummer Bob Rees offers eleven diverse and intense improvisational pieces on Blue Purge. This followup to 2003's Fusillades and Lamentations finds various moods in its path as it progresses from the wobbly “Ruffing It" to the playful “Depth Charge," the serene “Gut Luv," and the minimalistic “Moiling" and “Lunar Dust."

The willingness of bassist Rees and drummer Radding to engage Shoup beyond the commonly prescribed roles of rhythm ...

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44

Interview

Interview | Wally Shoup

Interview | Wally Shoup

Source: Ars Nova Workshop

On Wednesday, March 23, Ars Nova Workshop presents a trio performance by saxophonist Wally Shoup, violinist/electronicist C. Spencer Yeh, and percussionist Ben Hall at Fleisher/Ollman Gallery. Shoup, who is also a visual artist and writer, has worked with many leading experimental musicians, including LaDonna Smith, Evan Parker, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Nels Cline, Reuben Radding, and Chris Corsano. Based in Seattle since the 1980s, Shoup helped organize the city’s first Improvised Music Festival. An early explorer of the relationships between ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Aurora Distillations

Island Visual Arts
2012

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Good Curse

Island Visual Arts
2010

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The Levitation Shuffle

Island Visual Arts
2007

buy

Duo

Island Visual Arts
2007

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Bounced Check

Island Visual Arts
2007

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Blank Check

Island Visual Arts
2007

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