My parents started playing music for me before I was even born, and the only thing that would put me to sleep as an infant was listening to Dr. John. When I was 3 they tried starting me on violin (hated it) & trumpet (disassembled it), but piano worked well starting at age 4 or 5, and when the saxophone found its way to me in 6th grade it was like I had been born to play it. In one day I had the whole fingering chart memorized & started playing along with the radio or my Dad's records. That first year I learned Careless Whisper & Pink Floyd's Us & Them by ear.

When I was 3 my parents took me to hear Ray Charles. I remember I really liked "the big trumpets with slidey things", known to anyone older than 3 as "trombones" ;)

I like a full, round, & forceful sound, so I like big-bored horns. My tenor is a Keilwerth SX90R. Bueschers also rock. Aaaaand that's about enough about gear. I hate talking about equipment bc it's not what you use, it's what you do with it.

My musical interests are very diverse. On saxophone I was heavily influenced by Charlie Parker & Cannonball Adderley--they were the *only* music I listened to for two years during jr high, but you won't hear that in my sound now. Now I am way more influenced by Grover Washington Jr, Stanley Turrentine, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Benny Maupin, & Yusef Lateef. My goal is to have a bigger sound than Illinois Jaquet or Sonny Rollins. Yeah, good luck with that, I know, but Jim Maneri & the other Columbus jazz players who remember Rusty Bryant keep telling me that me & Joe Crump are the power duo keeping the Columbus balls-to-the-wall tenor sound alive. ********** My compositional & general influences are Rachmaninoff, Mussorgsky, Henryk Gorecki, Philip Glass, Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, John McLaughlin & Mahavishnu Orchestra, Herbie Hancock, Brother Jack McDuff, Les McCann, Charles Mingus cunnilingus, Jimmy Smith, Larry Young, Larry Graham, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Madonna, Prince, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Hole, Massive Attack, Bjork, Portishead, Johnny Cash, Bill Withers, Marvin Gaye, Steve Winwood, Steve Perry, Foreigner, Neil Young, & FOLEY.

Reached the Top 20 in FOX TV's nationally-syndicated show "The Next Great American Band". Nicole and the Fabulous Johnson Brothers advanced through a field of thousands of applicants to reach the Las Vegas round of the show, produced by the same franchise as American Idol and America's Next Top Model. (with the Fabulous Johnson Brothers, 2007) ********** Awarded the Silver Cup by Russ Freeman (the Rippingtons), and Michael Fagien (Jazziz Magazine). This award included a $10,000 cash prize, several mentions in Jazziz Magazine, inclusion in their monthly disk, and a $100,000 one-album contract to produce their third album, "Contempo", on the Jazziz imprint in 2002. (with Urban Jazz Coalition, 2001) ********** #2 on the Music Choice "Top 10" Digital Airplay Chart. (with Urban Jazz Coalition, 2003) ********** #53 on the Gavin Smooth Jazz Radio Chart. (with Urban Jazz Coalition, 2001) ********** #42 on the Smoothjazz.com National Airplay Chart. (with Urban Jazz Coalition, 2004) ********** Featured on the R&R Indicator Chart. (with Urban Jazz Coalition, 2004) ********** Listed on the Jazz Week Chartbound Album List. (with Urban Jazz Coalition, 2003) ********** Airplay on over 100 radio stations in 38 states and the UK, including WWCD (Columbus), WSJZ (New Orleans), WJZV (Richmond), WJZA/WJZK (Columbus), "Traditions & Trends" with Dianna Rose on KWJZ (Seattle), & "The Jeff Charney Show" on KPRS (Kansas City). ********** Featured on the BET On Jazz Cable Networks popular cooking show, "The Midnight Gourmet", featuring Nick Tolbert; as well as on nationally syndicated talk-radio, on "The Tom Pope Show". ********** "The energetic performance of the winning Columbus band was clearly the audience favorite. The funk-based music, and especially the wailing horn of Ben Sherburne, reached for the gut. Playing alto sax on Honey Brown, Sherburne screeched like David Sanborn; at other times he echoed Kenny G." --Curtis Schieber for The Columbus Dispatch; Monday March 26, 2001 (Note: Nicole's early work is under her former name, Benjamin Sherburne. Nicole completed her gender transition in 2006, changing her name to Nicole Rachelle Sherburne.) ********** Nicole plays regularly for the Fabulous Johnson Brothers, Hairplane!, Descendre, & Playhouse. She has shared the stage with Foley, Urban Jazz Coalition, George Clinton, Kendra Foster, Ricky Rouse, Hank Marr, and Tony Monaco. ********** She has opened for P-Funk, Kim Manning, Boney James, Larry Carlton, Al Jarreau, Spyro Gyra, Paul Taylor, Chieli Minucci & Special EFX, Rick Braun, Peter White, Russ Freeman and The Rippingtons, The Sax Pack featuring Jeff Kashiwa, Norman Brown, Pieces Of A Dream, Bob Baldwin, Roy Ayers, and Ken Navarro. ********** "When they did 'Birdland' it reminded us of Spyro Gyra, back in the old days." --Jay Beckenstein & Tom Schuman, Spyro Gyra ********** Discography ********** The Coalition - Different Angles (1998)
(soprano, alto, and tenor saxophone; keyboards and sequencing; drum programming) ********** The Grace Project - The Big Love (1998)
(tenor saxophone) ********** Urban Jazz Coalition - Into the Night... (2000)
(soprano, alto, and tenor saxophone; flute; clarinet; keyboards; arrangements) ********** Urban Jazz Coalition - Contempo (2002)
(soprano, alto, and tenor saxophone; flute; keyboards and sequencing; drum programming; arrangements) ********** Greggori - Just Feelin' It (2003)
(alto and tenor saxophone) ********** Urban Jazz Coalition - Long Street (2003)
(soprano, alto, and tenor saxophone; flute; keyboards; arrangements) ********** The Fabulous Johnson Brothers - We Come Together (2007)
(tenor saxophone) ********** Mas Bagua - Driving the Spaces In Between (2010)
(tenor & soprano saxophone; flute) ********** Mas Bagua - Pepper Jack Cheesus (2011)
(tenor & soprano saxophone; flute) ********** Jesse Michael Barr - Max Power's Revenge (2012)
(tenor & soprano saxophone; flute) ********** Adam Smith - The Haunting Of October Dreams (2012)
(tenor & soprano saxophone; flute)

Dr. Lonnie Smith. I got to meet him & sit in the front row when he played in Mansfield OH, but I was too young & inexperienced then. Since then he's been touring the world. I did get a chance to sit in with Tony Monaco, who subs for Lonnie Smith, but I really would love the opportunity to play with such a great jazz organist. I would also love to play again with Hank Marr, Columbus's best jazz B3 organ player, but sadly he passed on 10 years ago. OH! and MILES DAVIS.

The biggest audience that I've played to was 250,000, but they weren't all paying attention because they were there for the Red White & Boom fireworks. The most people in a real concert setting was 10,000 at the Multicultural Festival in Charleston, WV; 4,500 several times in Columbus, OH, for Jazz & Rib Fest & Arts Festival (opening for David Sanborn & Spiro Gyra); 4000-5000 at a smooth jazz show sponsored by Wendy's & WJZA in Dublin, OH; 1500+ when we won the Silver Cup Competition sponsored by Jazziz Magazine; 1500 for a jazz festival in Destin, FL; 3000 at a jazz festival in Indianapolis, IN; 3000 in Asbury Park, NJ; 1000 in front of the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA.

Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, but damn I'd miss Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2. If you don't like Pink Floyd, there's something wrong with you. I used to have that spinning in a little walkman under my marching band cap during football games, and during the bus rides out & back. Just close my eyes, & sit back, & trip out, totally my kind of thing.