Look

Both

Ways

CHAMBER MUSIC

“…an unusual recording that places Luciano Berio’s modernist works alongside the jazzy musings of composer David Sherr. The ArtMusic Ensemble shows its versatility in this disc, giving both high quality jazz and contemporary classical performances.” – Franghiz Ali-Zadeh

ALL MUSIC GUIDE

“convincingly delivered…clever compositional derivation.” – Francois Couture

SEQUENZA 21

“Show us a recording that takes its inspiration from Luciano Berio’s Sequenzas and the first 13 notes of Charlie Parker’s riff on “The Song is You” and we’ll show you an album that we flat-out love. These guys seriously cook!”

“an intriguing new sound world-provoking juxtaposition and integration of jazz and contemporary music” – Joan Jeanrenaud

“Extremely innovative” – Bill Watrous

THE WIRE

“Sherr’s Debussy Deb-You-Do, partly written, partly improvised, supplies a missing link between Berio and Dizzy Gillespie. Tastefully accomplished” – Julian Cowley

“Beautifully played” – Roger Kellaway

20THE CENTURY MUSIC

“As for the Berioian side, these are fine performances, state of the art from Sherr in all three cases. The oboe Sequenza is particularly alarming with its multiphonics and microtones…. A fantastic performance of a fantastic piece.” – Mark Alburger

MUSIC WEB INTERNATIONAL

David Sherr is not only a planet in himself; he is a galaxy… There is talen, talent and TALENT. David Sherr’s abilities sparkle like stardust on the latter… a musician of the XX!st century. This is new music at its best. – Jennifer Paull

MUSIC AND VISION

Fascinating music 
‘… a great interpreter and technical artist.’ 

A really surprising, exciting and captivating recording by an outstanding Ensemble, led by the outstanding David Sherr, an instrumentalist and musician of formidable stature. It is challenging enough for any flautist to take on the earliest of Berio’s Sequenzas, each a tour-de-force both technically and creatively. But to have the same player perform Sequenza VII, the one written for oboe virtuoso and composer Heinz Holliger in 1969 [listen — track 5, 4:02-4:54], and then produce a stunning performance of the eloquent Sequenza IXa of 1980, an amazing fifteen-minute solo originally written for Claude Delangle — then it has to be admitted that we are listening to a great interpreter and technical artist 

These performances alone are worth whatever it takes to obtain this CD. Add to that, however, David Sherr’s exciting first class performance on alto saxophone in the first movement of his own jazz suite The Secret Life of Walter MIDI, and you have the complete picture. As seems to be Sherr’s interest, he extracts from unlikely sources something as near to a twelve-tone series and moulds it into a wonderfully flexible composition. The first movement Sax Lines and Audio Tape takes the first thirteen notes of Charlie Parker’s solo of Kern-Hammerstein’s The Song is You and makes fascinating music. Later are heard superb solos from Brian Swartz on trumpet and Shelley Berg on piano. The third movement of the suite, In The Pocketa Pocketa is made out of lines from Mozart’s 40th Symphony. 

There are other Sherr pieces too. After the oboe Sequenza comes Palimpset, a repeat of Berio’s solo piece with Sherr’s added accompaniment for the full ensemble, superimposing his own improvised flute part. Debussy-Deb-You-Do is two sets of variations on material derived from Sequenza I and a Dizzy Gillespie solo. This is certainly a CD to get your hands on and your ears around, and will be very rewarding for the effort. – Patric Standford