Ware was born in
Plainfield, New Jersey, and grew up in
Scotch Plains, New Jersey. While in high school he attended music camp at the
University of Connecticut taught by
Ron Carter,
Charlie Mariano, and
Alan Dawson and played in his school's bands as well as in the New Jersey All-State band. He graduated from
Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School and briefly attended the
Berklee College of Music in 1967–68. Ware moved from Boston to New York City in 1973, where he participated in the
loft jazz scene, and later worked as a cab driver for 14 years in order to focus on his own group concept. In the early 1980s, he returned to Scotch Plains with his wife Setsuko S. Ware. Ware's debut album as a leader was recorded in 1977 – together with pianist Gene Ashton (aka
Cooper-Moore) and drummer
Marc Edwards – and released by
HatHut in 1979. He performed and recorded with the groups of pianist
Cecil Taylor and drummer
Andrew Cyrille in the mid-late 1970s. He formed his own quartet in 1989. The group was originally composed of Ware, pianist
Matthew Shipp, bassist
William Parker, and drummer
Marc Edwards. While Shipp and Parker were members for the group's entire existence, the drum chair was later occupied by
Whit Dickey,
Susie Ibarra, and
Guillermo E. Brown. The David S. Ware Quartet performed across the US and Europe and released a series of increasingly acclaimed albums spanning the 1990s on the independent labels
Silkheart,
DIW,
Homestead, and
AUM Fidelity. Saxophonist
Branford Marsalis signed Ware to
Columbia Records in 1998 for a three-album contract. In 2007, after 17 years together, the quartet was disbanded following the release of the album
Renunciation and a final European tour that spring. Ware proceeded to perform concerts and record albums with a series of new group configurations: a new quartet featuring guitarist
Joe Morris, William Parker, and drummer
Warren Smith; a special trio celebrating his 50th year of playing saxophone (in 2009) with Parker and Smith; a 2-volume series of solo saxophone performances; and finally with his last quartet, Planetary Unknown, featuring
Cooper-Moore, Parker, and drummer
Muhammad Ali. His final concert performance was with Planetary Unknown on August 27, 2011, at Jazzfestival Saalfelden in Austria. The recording of that concert was released in July 2012 on
AUM Fidelity. Ware was first diagnosed with kidney failure in 1999. He continued a decade of creative activity while on a strict regimen of
peritoneal dialysis, and Ware underwent a successful
kidney transplantation in May 2009. The organ donor was Floridian Laura Mehr, who responded to an urgent email message sent out to nearly 1,000 of Ware's fans. He returned to the stage that October, and continued to perform and record highly acclaimed work for the next two years, even as he endured serious complications brought on by required immunosuppressant medication. He finally succumbed to an aggressive blood infection and died on October 18, 2012, at
Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in
New Brunswick, New Jersey, age 62. ==Discography==