Radding’s musical experiences were enough prodding to transplant himself from D.C. to New York where his life became “about sitting alone in a room with a keyboard, which I don’t play worth a damn, scribbling dots and lines on paper, which no one would ever hear,” he sarcastically recalls. The scholarly approach to music was not an advantageous one to Radding. Luckily, while working in a bookstore, he discovered Anthony Braxton. His playing was changed irrevocably.

Finding that his experiences in D.C. and New York had taken their course and after a brief layover in Missoula, Radding made it to Seattle in the spring of 1997. Burnt out from travel and his musical endeavors, Radding sought a break from action and settled in the North West. Bereft of his dormant musical inclinations, Radding eventually sought out solace in improvising, finding Shoup and his musical brethren.

Discovering a complimentary player is perpetually difficult. Add to that fact, that the form is non existent and this compounds the problem. Enough similarities existed in style and concept that Shoup immediately knew he “found a great player” after musically conversing with Radding. The immediacy and rhythmic irregularities, which in this music stand for regularity, endeared Radding to Shoup and countless other groups that he has played with. The bassist explains this by supposing, “I have a tendency in my playing to imply form and others pick up on that.” Even amidst the maelstrom of sound Radding’s bass techniques manage to collect any ensembles thoughts and terrestrialize other players’ warblings.

“I don’t define the music material as much as I define how it will be shaped and developed,” figures Radding.

Coming from New York, coincidentally an incubator for Free Jazz and Punk, Radding possessed a different perspective and had different experiences, like being involved with the precursor of the now defunct club Tonic. “The jazz scene was shockingly conservative,” Radding recalls about Seattle upon his arrival. “The Jazz scene and the Free Improv communities were not as integrated as they were in NY,” he continued via e-mail. Since leaving the North West and venturing back to Brooklyn, which he calls the “center of this music”, Radding has played with a variety of groups ranging in sound from Klezmer back to more Jazz oriented ensembles. “I prefer to be in New York for many reasons, the pool of talent, the diversity, the challenges.”

The Quartet of Shoup, Radding, Burns and Campbell gave Seattle an improv group that equals the progressive tag that Seattle has acquired. Although Radding now calls the East Coast home, the group has recorded and released an album entitled The Levitation Shuffle. The settings that the band creates for Shoup’s horn become familiar, allowing conversations between players to develop. At once the band can be caterwauling and the next moment, Shoup drops out and development amongst three musicians ensues. Suppressed and quiet explorations without a leader provide needed breaks from louder actions and serve to punctuate Shoup’s re-entry into the fold. There is a hint of David Thomas (Pere Ubu), who might be considered a punk himself, in Shoup’s horn work. Much like the vocal entanglements Thomas ensnared himself in, Burns and Shoup frequently arouse imagery of family infighting replete with emotional outbursts. The Quartet, and its recording, question what can and should be considered proper playing. It challenges the listener to not only appreciate the sounds that they hear, but to make it through the recording and view the distinctive tracks as a single entity. The Wally Shoup Quartet was a single entity, briefly. Now only chance circumstances reunite them.