Wally Shoup

Who is Wally Shoup?

Wally Shoup is an American jazz alto saxophonist and painter. Based in Seattle, Washington since 1985, Shoup is a mainstay of that city's improvised music scene. Seattle Metropolitan named him one of the 50 most influential musicians in that city's history.

Born in North Carolina, and raised in Charlotte, Initially working as a schoolteacher, Shoup moved Atlanta, Georgia in the late 1960s, then to Colorado in 1970. There, he first lived in Manitou Springs and later in Colorado Springs.

By his own account, Shoup "grew up listening to black music in the South, the blues 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 and his calling as a musician." "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, the Colorado College radio station, where by Jason Heller's account 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, 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 meets Merzbow or something."