RIP David S Ware

David S. Ware passed away at the age of 62. I never had the pleasure to see him perform but have purchased a number of the recordings. He was a robust 'free' saxophonist, yet rooted deeply in the tradition with Sonny Rollins influence very apparent in his playing. This was not surprising and he recorded several of Sonny's compositions, most notably am album length version of  The Freedon Suite. He performed and recorded with Cecil Taylor, Andrew Cyrille before his own impressive recordings over the past coupled ecdaes. He also had a remarkable long-standing quartet with pianist Matthew Shipp, bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake.  His Thirsty Ear release, Live in the World, contains three CDs of riveting music may be hard to find but worth searching out.

To remember him, here he is in performance for you to enjoy.

Here is some obituaries:

From Jazzwise Magazine.

From JazzTimes.

From the Ottawa Citizen which also has the links to the videos I have embedded in this post.

From Los Angeles Times

From NPR

From Burning Ambulance

From CultureCatch

From NY Times

Pianist Matthew Shipp on David S. Ware:

Here is a preview of a new film about him