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Bill Ware
Ware played bass and piano early in his career, playing at the Harlem Jazzmobile. After spending several years playing Latin jazz, he formed his own Latin Jazz group, AM Sleep. He joined the Jazz Passengers in 1987, and in 1990 put together a group of sidemen as the Club Bird All-Stars, who accompanied him on a tour of Japan.[1] Alongside this, he played with Groove Collective and Steely Dan in the first half of the 1990s. Later in the decade he teamed up with fellow former Jazz Passengers, Brad Jones and E. J. Rodriguez, in the ensemble Vibes. His 2001 tribute to Duke Ellington was recorded with Marc Ribot on guitar. Deborah Harry guested on his 2002 effort Four. In the mid-2000s, Ware did several projects blending jazz with Western classical musicas well as five film scores (with fellow Jazz Passengers bandmate Roy Nathanson).
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Bill Ware: Played Right
by Gordon Marshall
Never one to swoop into the limelight or blithely steal the show, vibraphonist Bill Ware has built a model résumé that weaves silently and inscrutably through the best of most modern genres. Ware's Played Right accordingly shows the touch of a resilient, serpentine stylist, a master of quiet spectacle. Titles alone offer a provocative cross-section of popular music's history--the Modern Jazz Quartet's Django" follows a few cuts after Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit" and closes out in ...
read moreAndy Summers: Peggy's Blue Skylight
by Todd S. Jenkins
The former Police guitarist assays the multifaceted works of Charles Mingus on this compelling disc, offering updates of the temperamental bassist’s timeless compositions. Summers previously tackled solid material by Mingus, Wayne Shorter, Thelonious Monk and other jazzmen on his 1997 project The Last Dance of Mr. X, with bassist Tony Levin and drummer Gregg Bissonette. Peggy’s Blue Skylight finds Summers and a wider cast mining Mingus’ legacy more deeply, revealing that these classic tunes still have plenty to offer contemporary ...
read moreBill Ware and the Y2K Jazz Quartet: Keeping Up With the Jones
by C. Michael Bailey
Milt Jackson, RIP. October witnessed the death of Milt Jackson, the preeminent vibraphonist of jazz. As the music progresses toward the 21st Century, Jazz will continue to lose the pioneers of the Bebop Era. Milt Jackson was an urbane guiding light who will be missed.
In Jackson’s shadow, forging their own are two mammoth vibes talents: Stefon Harris and Bill Ware. Harris has been well represented the last few months in these pages and so now it is Ware’s turn. ...
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