Reuben Radding is a bassist, free improviser, teacher, and recording engineer based in Brooklyn, NY. He was born in Washington DC in 1966, where he first began performing as a member of the legendary DC punk scene. After relocating to New York City in 1988 he studied the double bass with Mark Dresser and quickly became a busy stalwart of the so-called "Downtown" scene, performing with many of the most prominent new Jazz musicians of the time, including John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Anthony Coleman, Andrea Parkins, Dave Douglas, and Marc Ribot, with whom he toured throughout Europe and Canada in 1995. He also performed with many of the greats of Free Jazz, like Roy Campbell Jr., Daniel Carter, Rashid Bakr, Rob Brown, Susie Ibarra, Assif Tsahar, etc. Radding's own group from that period, Myth Science, which only played the compositions of composer/bandleader Sun Ra, recorded one CD for the Knitting Factory label, "Love In Outer Space." Radding co-founded the experimental world music trio Refuseniks with drummer John Hollenbeck and accordionist Ted Reichman in 1995, whose year-long residency at the East Village cafe alt.coffee evolved into the NYC nightclub Tonic.

Radding relocated to Seattle, WA in early 1997, where he began collaborating with Northwest improvisers Wally Shoup, Stuart Dempster, Amy Denio, Greg Sinibaldi, Jessica Lurie, Gust Burns, Jesse Canterbury, Paul Hoskin, Bob Rees, Greg Campbell, and became the virtual "house bassist" for visiting luminaries like Saadet Turkoz (Turkey), Carlo Actis Dato (Italy), and Wolfgang Fuchs (Germany). In 2001 he brought NYC reed/brass legend Daniel Carter to Seattle for a duo concert in the Earshot Jazz Festival, and a studio recording. The resulting CD, Luminescence (AUM Fidelity, 2003), has received widespread critical acclaim worldwide. Radding returned to NYC in early 2002.

Recent projects have included the Reuben Radding Trio with vibraphonist Matt Moran, and clarinetist Oscar Noriega. Their first album, Intersections, was released in 2005 by Radding's own Pine Ear label featuring his dodecaphonic jazz compositions. Radding's second Pine Ear CD, Fugitive Pieces, released in 2006, is a collection of improvisations derived from graphic and text-based scores featuring Nate Wooley (trumpet), Andrew Drury (percussion), and Matt Bauder (saxophone, clarinet). Radding and Wooley are also members of the group Transit whose CD was released in 2005 by Portugal's Clean Feed label. Frequent collaborations include duo projects with pianist Ursel Schlicht (einstein's dreams, Konnex, 2005), saxophonist Jack Wright (This Is Not An Exit, CD from Sachimay Interventions, 2006), Texas trombonist Brian Allen (TromboneContrabass, Braintone, 2005), and an improvised chamber trio with Bay-Area violist Tara Flandreau and North Carolina oboeist Carrie Shull (The Branch Will Not Break, Umbrella Recordings, 2005). He is preparing a solo bass tour and CD for early 2007.

Reuben Radding has also performed or recorded with Robert Dick, Lukas Ligeti, Laura Andel Orchestra, John Oswald, Tatsuya Nakatani, Dylan VanDerSchyff, Ned Rothenberg, Billy Martin, Scott Rosenberg, Butch Morris, Carlos Bechegas, Damon Smith, Michael Bisio, Ben Holmes, Karen Waltuch, Mary Halvorson, and butoh dancer Vanessa Skantze.

Reuben Radding has taught masterclasses on extended bass techniques, and free improvisation workshops at many colleges, universities, high schools, and middle-schools in the the US and at the Banff Center in Canada. He has recieved a number of grants and awards, including a fellowship from Artist Trust in 2001, and was a resident at Music OMI (Ghent, NY) in 2006 . He has appeared at many major festivals including Victoriaville (Canada), North Sea Jazz Festival (Netherlands), Pori Jazz Festival (Finland), Vienna Jazz Fest (Austria), Kongsberg Jazz Festival (Norway), What Is Jazz? Festival (NYC), Kasseler Symposium zu Aktueller Musik (Germany), LeWeekend (Scotland), Drooga Goodba (Slovenia), The Vision Festival (NYC), Earshot Jazz Festival (Seattle, WA), the Seattle Improvised Music Festival (Seattle, WA), Improvised and Otherwise (NYC).

Reuben Radding is also a much in-demand sideman in the Klezmer and Balkan folk music scene, and has worked with Andy Statman, Yuri Yunakov, Frank London, David Krakauer, Village Klezmer, the Zagnut Orkestar, The Klez Dispensers, Alex Kontorovitch's Deep Minor, and Ansambl Mastika.

An accomplished recording engineer and producer, Radding is the owner of Studio STATS, in Brooklyn, NY

Press Quotes:

"Radding's bass tolls like a bell and sends the horns scurrying for cover." --Jason Bivins, Dusted Magazine

"Radding demonstrates a far-reaching facility, alternating lithe figures with a sinewy arco technique that hemorrhages raw emotion. Whether throttling gnarled motifs, or eliciting spectral harmonics, his resonant tone and agile phrasing is captivating. A dominant force, he nearly steals the show." --Troy Collins, All About Jazz

"Radding has one of the thickest tones on the double bass to be heard in jazz today." --Jeff Stockton, All About Jazz

"Radding demonstrated a clear command of his instrument, veering with abandon between conventional pizzicato work and a post-free liberty-taking aided by bow, sticks, and hands. A muscly, mesomorph figure, Radding bullies, slaps, and worries his bass like a half-bothered, fully curious black bear mauling a backpacker." --Peter Monahan, Earshot Jazz

"Radding, as usual, sounds like he's using a bass about ten feet long and bthree deep." --Brian Olewnick, Bagatellen

"Radding has a fertile and wide-ranging imagination." --Christian Carey, Signal to Noise

"He just burns--forget other bass players." --The Improvisor

"One of New York's top avant-garde improvisers." --David R. Adler, Philadelphia Inquirer

As Leader:

Intersections (Pine Ear Music, 2005)
Fugitive Pieces (Pine Ear Music, 2006)

Collaborative & sideman appearances: