Free Radicals (band)
Encyclopedia
Free Radicals is an American
jazz
, funk
, hip-hop, avant-garde
, ska
, reggae
, African music, Indian music, punk
, klezmer
, polka
and latin jazz
group based in Houston, Texas
.
Drummer Nick Cooper
founded the group in 1996, with a goal of specializing in improvised music. In 2000, The New Yorker
wrote "The horn-heavy, continually evolving collective Free Radicals produces a wildly eclectic fusion that has as many influences as there are items in the Houston, Texas, pawnshop in which they honed their sound during all-night jam sessions." In 2010, Dawn (newspaper)
wrote that the artwork and message about underwater oil-leaks, oil-wars, and bank-crashes on the band's first CD was like a "premonition waiting to become true."
Free Radicals performs many concerts, marches and fund-raisers for anti-authoritarian and radical groups like food not bombs
, peace festivals, and charities events including a continuous 24-hour concert in November 1999 to raise money for Kid Care, a health program for children. They have protested against Halliburton
, and participated in marches for immigrants' rights and for a Houston janitor's union.
The band is recording a fourth studio album.
Free Radicals has won the following 14
Houston Press awards:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, hip-hop, avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
, ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
, reggae
Reggae
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
, African music, Indian music, punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, klezmer
Klezmer
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
, polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
and latin jazz
Latin jazz
Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...
group based in Houston, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
.
History
Free Radicals' live band includes six or seven members. On recordings—The Rising Tide Sinks All (1998), Our Lady of Eternal Sunny Delights (2000), and Aerial Bombardment (2004)—Free Radicals invites a group of 50 or more musicians and vocalists into the studio.Drummer Nick Cooper
Nick Cooper
Nick Cooper is an American drummer, record producer and composer best known for his work with Free Radicals. Nick is also an activist with indymedia, and food not bombs, a writer for the Free Press Houston, and Houston Peace News...
founded the group in 1996, with a goal of specializing in improvised music. In 2000, The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
wrote "The horn-heavy, continually evolving collective Free Radicals produces a wildly eclectic fusion that has as many influences as there are items in the Houston, Texas, pawnshop in which they honed their sound during all-night jam sessions." In 2010, Dawn (newspaper)
Dawn (newspaper)
Dawn is Pakistan's oldest and most widely read English-language newspaper. One of the country's two largest English-language dailies, it is the flagship of the Dawn Group of Newspapers, published by Pakistan Herald Publications, which also owns the Herald, a magazine, the evening paper The Star and...
wrote that the artwork and message about underwater oil-leaks, oil-wars, and bank-crashes on the band's first CD was like a "premonition waiting to become true."
Free Radicals performs many concerts, marches and fund-raisers for anti-authoritarian and radical groups like food not bombs
Food Not Bombs
Food Not Bombs is a loose-knit group of independent collectives, serving free vegan and vegetarian food to others. Food Not Bombs' ideology is that myriad corporate and government priorities are skewed to allow hunger to persist in the midst of abundance...
, peace festivals, and charities events including a continuous 24-hour concert in November 1999 to raise money for Kid Care, a health program for children. They have protested against Halliburton
Halliburton
Halliburton is the world's second largest oilfield services corporation with operations in more than 70 countries. It has hundreds of subsidiaries, affiliates, branches, brands and divisions worldwide and employs over 50,000 people....
, and participated in marches for immigrants' rights and for a Houston janitor's union.
The band is recording a fourth studio album.
Free Radicals has won the following 14
Houston Press awards:
- 2011: Best Jazz,
- 2010: Best Jazz,
- 2009: Best Jazz, Best Drummer
- 2008: Best Jazz
- 2004: Best CD by Local Musicians
- 2003: Best Jazz
- 2002: Best Jazz
- 2001: Best Jazz
- 1999: Best Jazz, Best Funk, Best Drummer
- 1998: Best Jazz, Best Unsigned Band
Discography
- 1998: The Rising Tide Sinks All
- 2000: Our Lady of Eternal Sunny Delights (Rastaman Work Ethic)
- 2004: Aerial Bombardment (Rastaman Work Ethic)