Reuben Radding's Fugitive Pieces

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Fugitive Pieces is Pine Ear's second release by composer/double bassist Reuben Radding. A major contrast to the chamber jazz of 2005's highly acclaimed Intersections CD, this outing finds Radding leading a quartet formation with Nate Wooley on trumpet, Matt Bauder on reeds, and Andrew Drury on percussion, that is traditional only in its instrumentation. Generated by verbal explanations of Radding's graphic and text scores, conceived specifically for the languages of the players--as well as open improvisation--the seven pieces form a suite of eerie, delicate beauty that suggests comparisons to Cardew, Ussachevsky, and Feldman. Terms like "minimalism" or "lower case" will not come close to describing the sensitivity and power these artists bring to the table.

Reuben Radding was born in Washington DC to a family of classical musicians, and relocated to New York City in 1988 where he studied contrabass with Mark Dresser and quickly became a busy stalwart of the Downtown scene. His powerful sound and sensitive listening has contributed to countless ensembles ranging from jazz to classical to Balkan and klezmer, and he has been featured on over 40 recordings on labels such as Leo Records, AUM Fidelity, Tzadik, and Clean Feed. Radding's primary focus is on free improvisation, and he has performed or recorded with John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Elliott Sharp, Daniel Carter, Stuart Dempster, Robert Dick, Saadet Turkoz, Wally Shoup, Wolfgang Fuchs, John Oswald, Ursel Schlicht, Dylan VanDerSchyff, Dave Douglas, John Hollenbeck, Ned Rothenberg, Denman Maroney, Scott Rosenberg, Anthony Coleman, Nate Wooley, Eyvind Kang, Butch Morris, and many others.

Matt Bauder (saxophone & clarinet) has studied with Ed Sarath, Anthony Braxton, Ron Kuivila and Alvin Lucier. He has been an active member of the new music scenes in Ann Arbor, Chicago and New York, where he has performed with, among others, Anthony Braxton, Memorize The Sky, Andrew D'Angelo, Jeff Parker, Chad Taylor, Jim Baker, Ken Vandermark and Phil Minton. He appears on recordings with Anthony Braxton (482 Music), Jason Ajemian (Locust Music), Warn Defever (Perforate My Heart), Neil Michael Hagerty (Drag City), His Name is Alive (4AD/Time Stereo), Saturday Looks Good to Me (Polyvinyl) and Bill Brovald (Tzadik).

Nate Wooley (trumpet) grew up in a Finnish-American fishing village in Oregon. He has spent the rest of his life trying musically to find a way back to the peace and quiet of that time by wholeheartedly embracing the space between complete absorption in sound and relative absence of the same.He began playing trumpet professionally at age 13 with his father, and after studying he moved to Colorado where he studied more with Ron Miles, Art Lande, Fred Hess, and improvisation master Jack Wright. Nate currently resides in Jersey City, NJ and performs solo trumpet improvisations as well as with his trio Blue Collar with Steve Swell and Tatsuya Nakatani.He has also performed regularly with Anthony Braxton, Bhob Rainey, Alessandro Bosetti, Fritz Welch, Herb Robertson, Kevin Norton, Tony Malaby, Randy Peterson, Scott Rosenberg, Matt Moran, Chris Speed, Andrew D'Angelo, Tim Barnes, Okkyung Lee, Assif Tsahar, and other improvisation luminaries.

Andrew Drury (percussion) has made two CDs as a bandleader, appeared on nine others, and has worked with Mark Dresser, Wayne Horvitz, David Krakauer, Brad Shepik, Wadada Leo Smith, John Tchicai, and others. Drury's trio featuring Myra Melford and Briggan Krauss debuted at Roulette in December and he collaborates with Taylor Ho Bynum, Chris Hoffman, Adam Lane, Nate Wooley, and Jack Wright. A former student of Ed Blackwell, he has performed and photographed 21 drum solos in outdoor settings in eight western states, performed in streets and villages in Nicaragua and Guatemala, and led over 700 junk percussion workshops across the US. Originally from Seattle, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.

Radding engineered and mixed Fugitive Pieces himself at Studio STATS, his Brooklyn facility where he has also recorded recent sides for Stephen Gauci, Tony Malaby, Michael Bisio, and Roubai3 from Lebanon. The evocative cover art is by NYC photographer Susan Bowen, whose unique work also graced the cover of Intersections.

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