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Peter Schärli Trio
featuring Glenn Ferris

Thomas Dürst - double bass
Glenn Ferris - trombone
Hans-Peter Pfammatter - piano
Peter Schärli - trumpet

A beauty emerges that makes it understandable that the simple should not be confused with the simple. Music brimming with the fruits of experience.

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Peter Schärli has been on stage for over thirty years. In this country, of course, and in surrounding Europe, but also at festivals across the world in Asia, Africa, and South America. There are good reasons for this constant success. They are simple and very swiss. Peter Schärli (like a few other Swiss: Roger Federer, Stephan Eicher, Roman Signer) delivers consistent quality at a high level. And the fact that sooner or later this often prevails is one of the comforting findings of our existence.
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For Peter Schärli, quality means that he manages to find a clever mix between artistic standards and sufficient proximity to the audience. Schärli puts pieces on his musicians' desk that sound singable and simple, but that have hidden corners and edges that challenge even an all-rounder like trombonist Glenn Ferris. Pieces that make wonderful musicians such as the Valais pianist Hans-Peter Pfammatter, the Emmental bassist Thomas Dürst and of course Schärli himself happy. And musicians are like normal people: when they're happy, they play better.
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Glenn Ferris is also one of the few world-class musicians who can claim to have played with the brilliant Frank Zappa: As a very young trombonist, he was a member of the small Wazoo Orchestra, which played some of the best and most complex compositions on a world tour Zappas played. Ferris has been working as a professional since he was sixteen years old and his discography, with over a hundred CDs under his own name and as a sideman: from Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, Tim Buckley and the Average White Band Don Ellis, Quincy Jones, Art Pepper, Tony Scott, Archie Shepp and Billy Cobham to John Scofield, Michel Petrucciani and the Brecker Brothers.
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At Schärli, quality also means artistic integrity. An artist doesn't have to meet expectations, he has to be with himself. Schärli is exactly this, the result is a work that is constantly evolving and yet always bears his signature. And you can feel it in the music at hand, there are beautiful melodies, clever chords, swing, drive, sophisticated improvisations, craftsmanship, empathetic interplay - in short: everything that is jazz - good music at all! - can offer. What more do we want?!
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Beat Blaser about the Peter Schärli Trio featuring Glenn Ferris in June 2011

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Peter Rüedi

“Give”, as the title of the new release is extremely impressive but never intrusive, surprising but never hungry for originality, in short: a harmoniously balanced but never boring chamber jazz whose barbs, but also its cheerful charm, amazes the listener over the course of the song. What I mean is: The latter is not obvious; the quartet doesn't put it in his mouth or force it on his ear. It is of the nobler, more discreet kind, in the compositions (three are by Ferris, two by Schärli, one each by Pfammatter and Dürst) as well as in the improvised parts. They're not ego trips, everyone relates to everyone else. Particularly impressive: the collective flights of the two brass instruments in intimate juxtaposition, parallel or in counterpoint. Sublime mastery. This applies to the CD as a whole.

Peter Rüedi about “Give” by Peter Schärli Trio featuring Glenn Ferris in Weltwoche on September 9th, 2021

The concerts by the Peter Schärli Trio featuring Glenn Ferris in November 2022 are financially supported by:

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