Ware

2021 has been an incredible year so far for Jessie Ware. ‘What’s Your Pleasure?’ re-entered the Top 10 following a brilliant Graham Norton performance of ‘Remember Where You Are’ which has proved itself to be one of Jessie’s most connective singles to date. In addition, Jessie has two BRITs nominations, one for Female Solo artist and one for Album Of The Year – the category with a historic four women up for the award.

Writer and producer Leon Ware has been responsible for some of R&B and pop's most lush and romantic tracks. Ware produced Marvin Gaye's 1976 classic I Want You. He also co-wrote songs like Michael Jackson's "I Wanna Be Where You Are," Marlena Shaw's "Sweet Beginnings," and the Main Ingredient's "Rollin' Down a Mountainside" to name a few. This album is the follow-up to his 1976 Gordy release Musical Massage and was released shortly after he was behind the controls for nine of the ten tracks of Melissa Manchester's Don't Cry Loud. Inside Is Love has the intelligent and melody rich work fans expect from Leon Ware. Produced by Ware and Ron Roker, this has arrangements from David Blumberg, Gene Page, and Sonny Burke. Although he's not the world's strongest vocalist, his methodical, light tenor gives these songs a personal stamp. The first track, "What's Your Name" has Ware playing his naïve lothario act to the hilt. The magnificent "Love Is a Simple Thing," co-written by Chicago member Robert Lamm, possesses a chorus that is both poignant and uplifting.

“What if a woman wrote the song?” This question drives a recital of songs by female composers performed by soprano Golda Schultz and pianist Jonathan Ware. Opening with works by Clara Schumann and Emilie Mayer (including her setting of the ballad Erlkönig ), this recital weaves stories of women’s experience with fantastic tales of powerful sirens like the Lorelei . The great American-British violist and composer Rebecca Clarke’s arresting William Blake settings offer a woman’s perspective on texts also set by Benjamin Britten. Devotional works from Nadia Boulanger reveal a compositional master in her own right, in addition to her legendary status as pedagogue to innumerable greats including Aaron Copland and Daniel Barenboim. This be Her Verse , a song cycle by poet-librettist Lila Palmer and composer Kathleen Tagg was directly commissioned by the artists to conclude the programme and add an important contribution to the repertory: Songs written by women, about women, highlighting the female experience.

The Chicago Sound is the sole album led by American jazz bassist Wilbur Ware. It features a quintet with the saxophonist Johnny Griffin and was recorded in 1957 for the Riverside label. It was subsequently re-released by the Jazzland label as: Johnny Griffin & Wilbur Ware with Junior Mance and renamed "The Chicago Cookers" in 1960.Allmusic reviewer Scott Yanow considered the album "a fine debut by Ware. It seems strange that in his remaining 20-plus years the bassist never led another album".

“What if a woman wrote the song?” This question drives a recital of songs by female composers performed by soprano Golda Schultz and pianist Jonathan Ware. Opening with works by Clara Schumann and Emilie Mayer (including her setting of the ballad Erlkönig ), this recital weaves stories of women’s experience with fantastic tales of powerful sirens like the Lorelei . The great American-British violist and composer Rebecca Clarke’s arresting William Blake settings offer a woman’s perspective on texts also set by Benjamin Britten. Devotional works from Nadia Boulanger reveal a compositional master in her own right, in addition to her legendary status as pedagogue to innumerable greats including Aaron Copland and Daniel Barenboim. This be Her Verse , a song cycle by poet-librettist Lila Palmer and composer Kathleen Tagg was directly commissioned by the artists to conclude the programme and add an important contribution to the repertory: Songs written by women, about women, highlighting the female experience.

Finally Jessie Ware returns with a new album. What's Your Pleasure? is a two-year labour of love with the dream team, including collaborators such as Shungudzo Kuyimba, Kindness, Clarence Coffee Jr., Metronomy and former Badbadnotgood sound whiz Matthew Tavares.

Jessie Ware releases her fifth studio album That! Feels Good! via EMI Records. Lead track Pearls sees the dancefloor diva back where she belongs. Thumping with 70’s funk infused basslines and infectious grooves towed by sonic synthesisers, the track was co-written and produced by Coffee Clarence JR, Sarah Hudson and legendary British producer Stuart Price. The track is riding high on captivating energy that seems like it could’ve emerged straight from a mirror ball.

Acclaimed young cellist Maciej Kulakowski (Lutoslawski International Cello Competition 2015, First Prize; Queen Elisabeth Competition 2017, Laureate) is partnered by pianist Jonathan Ware in an all-French recital programme that mingles the familiar with the reimagined. Elements of ‘Spanish’ style, blues and jazz, and the ironic humour of the Parisian café, encountered in sonatas by Debussy, Poulenc and Ravel (Ku_akowski’s cello rendering of the latter’s second violin sonata), are echoed in a brace of shorter works that includes several further transcriptions: of three short pieces by Debussy and of Satie’s Trois Gnossiennes.