Wally Shoup
Wally Shoup is another long standing Seattle treasure, although he he is originally from Alabama. Wally’s been here long enough to be a founder of the Seattle Improvised Music Festival (now in its 24th year) and for a while curated a regular series in the back room at the old Speakeasy before it burned down. Wally is best know for playing the alto saxophone which he continues to play with fiery ferocity to the current day. Wally brought us a wonderful selection of his recordings going all the way back to his 1981 LP with Ross Rabin. This early recording is one of the few to feature Wally playing other instruments. It became a favorite of Thurston Moore - a self described Wally completist who had Wally open up for Sonic Youth in the mid-1990’s and has played with him many times since. Among the 12 different LPs and CDs we got are recordings matching Wally with Neils Cline, Greg Campbell, Toshi Makihara, Thurston Moore, Chris Corsano, Paul Flaherty, Jeph Jerman, and Brent Arnold, plus releases by the trios Ghidra (with Bill Horist and Mike Peterson), Project W (with Brent Arnold and Ed Pias) and Spider Trio (with Jeffery Taylor and Dave Abramson). While a lot of improvisers have recently turned to toning down there sound, Wally keeps alive the blistering ferocity of old fashioned free jazz. Some of these titles are destined to disappear into the fields of rarity (the Project W CD and 7″ are on long defunct Apraxia label), so grab these hot goodies while you can. As a special added bonus, the first 6 customers will get a free copy of the Wally Shoup Gust Burns Duo CDR with their purchase of any other Wally Shoup title!