Jenny Scheinman's: All Species Parade: Appreciating Our Relationship to Nature

Jenny Scheinman: All Species Parade: Royal Potato Family

The master violinist/composer/arranger Jenny Scheinman has released her latest musical gem, All Species Parade, on October 11, 2024 out on Royal Potato Family. For Scheinman fans, its been a long five years since the violinist and her then co-leader  drummer Allison Miller,  released their successful Parlour Game in 2019. But by all accounts the wait has been worth it. The album is a twelve composition, polymorphous, two-cd effort that gets its inspiration from Scheinman's return to her Pacific Northwest's roots in her Humboldt County, California home in 2012 after leaving a prolific career in the New York City area. Scheinman is the product of a folk-inspired, nature-immersive upbringing that has made an indelible tattoo into her musical psyche. Her sound has found its way into collaborations with such diverse artists as Lucinda Williams, Norah Jones, Ani Di Franco, Joni Mitchell ,Lou Reed and the metal band Metallica. 

As a youth in what is still called the "Lost Coast," hundreds of miles north of San Francisco, and in the western most location in the United States, Scheinman studied violin and piano. She attended Oberlin Conservatory and graduated from U.C. in Berklee and Santa Clara. As a young artist who moved to NYC, she found herself joining guitar wizard Bill Frisell on a fourteen show run at the Village Vanguard in 2002. Frisell has since become a frequent collaborator. 

On this release, All Species Parade, Scheinman is joined by a stellar cast of like- minded musicians who together help make her vision into a reality. The group includes guitarist Frisell, the pianist Carmen Staaf, the intuitive roots inspired rhythm section of bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen and guest artists guitarist's Julian Lage on three songs and Nels Cline on two others. 

Scheinman's vision for this album was inspired by "...a charged relationship to nature, a feeling of being part of something bigger than ourselves, powerful, fragile and constantly changing..." 

Jenny Scheiman and Bill Frisell (photo credit unknown)

The music is eclectic, fluid and spans across genres. The opener, "Ornette Goes Home" is a bouncy, playful, mixture of down home fiddling and free jazz. Scheinman's violin is vibrant, somewhat off-center and swings as Staaf's piano melds brilliantly with her in emphatic communication. Frisell's intuitive guitar work is on point as Scherr and Wollesen create a liquid rhythmic background that swells with organic feel and vibe. Pure joy.

If your a fan of cinematic music then look no further than the "Every Bear That Ever There Was" a song that reminds me of Henry Mancini's "Baby Elephant Walk" from the movie Hatari of 1962. Scheinman's violin spells out the melody in a Stuff Smith inspired take, as the piano, bass and drums spell out the cadenced, processional direction. You can't help but feel that as your listening to this one, you might look down and see some bear prints staining your hardwood floor.

"Juroujiji" is a part of a three song suite along with "The Sea Also Rises" and the title composition " All Species Parade." "Jurounjiji", a song dedicated to the  Northern California based native American Wiyot tribe, opens with a plaintive piano line by Staaf and features some gorgeously intuitive acoustic guitar work by Julian Lage over some shimmering cymbal work by Wollesen and pulsing bass by Scherr. Scheinman's sorrowful violin accentuates the somberness of the music as Lage's guitar explorations float in the ether.

"The Sea Also Rises" is at less than two minutes, the shortest of the compositions. It features Staaf's piano meanderings as Wollesen's percussive accents. 

"All the Species Parade" creates a slow, soulful groove that has you bopping your head to the beat with Frisell's twangy guitar sending out electrical waves of accent into the atmosphere. Scheinman's violin strings are plucked and bowed creating a tension and release that encourages your body to respond in like. The sounds weave together in a fusion of colors, feelings and emotions.

"Shutdown Stomp" is a cross between a hoedown and a gypsy jazz jam with Lage's acoustic guitar again entering as a foil to Scheiman's violin and Staaf's honky-tonk piano work. 

"House of Flowers" is a pastoral piece that features Scheinman's evocative violin, Staaf's ostinato piano work, and Nel Cline's delicate electrical guitar explorations. There is an Americana feel to this one. Music that wraps you in a blanket of welcoming sound. Scheinman's violin is most fluid here with a sinewy attack that is most engaging as it interacts with Cline's ethereal electric offerings.

Where there are waves there will always be surf and on the Lost Coast's Cape Medocino so there is surf rock. On "Cape" the group create a surf music groove that rocks out. Wollesen's drums open this one up with a relentless drive as Scheinman's violin, Frisell and Cline's electric guitars, Staaf's piano and organ,  and Scherr's bottom keep this one from letting up.

The north coast is known for its sun bathing sea lions on the rock formations that pock along the Pacific North West shoreline. "With the Sea Lions" Scheinman is paying homage to these majestic creatures in their home habitat. She creates a cosmic composition without adding herself to the mix. Frisell provides his magical, otherworldly guitar wizardry that offers an  peaceful, cloudlike atmosphere that represents how much beauty and tranquility these creatures bring to us who can just stop, observe, respect and enjoy. Wollesen's sympathetic cymbal work is a treat and Staaf's piano accompaniment is majestic and yet subtle. 

The album ends with gorgeous "Nocturne for 2020" which is an elegiac reflection on the turmoil and stress that we as a nation and a planet had to live through during Covid. Scheinman's violin brilliantly expresses sorrow and lamentation with select lines that eek with empathy. Lage's sensitive finger picking and guitar solo is at its best. The music has a distinctive Flamenco inspired feel to it. There is a exquisite support from the entire crew of Staaf, Frisell, Scherr and Wollesen. 

Jenny Scheinman's "Here on Earth" Simple Music for Stressful Times

Jenny Scheinman photo  Erik Jacobs

The violinist Jenny Scheinman has made her mark in the world of jazz, avant-rock, Gypsy jazz and Americana. On her latest offering, Here On Earth, she takes on the “fiddle” music of Appalachia, sprinkles it with Irish folk music and renders it into its essence- pure, unadulterated honest music of the working class who find solace from their daily drudgery in the joyful, bittersweet bows of a violin.

Born and raised on the western coast of California, the child of back-to-the-land, folk musicians, Scheinman has been playing music from an early age. Since moving to New York in 1999, Scheinman has steadily made her mark on the music scene. Her career has and continues to be as eclectic as one could imagine. When not leading her own collaborations, her violin sounds have graced the work of Norah Jones, Marc Ribot, Jason Moran and Bill Frisell to name a few.

On Here on Earth she has chosen to portray what she calls “fiddle’ music with spare instrumentation, mostly using an accompanying guitarist, at times adding accents of banjo and resonator guitar and tuba, mostly eschewing the use of any purely percussive instrument.  The rhythms of the songs are instead delicately filigreed with repeating finger-picked lines and sustained bowing techniques. The music evokes chilly nights, hovering by blazing campfires with slightly inebriated friends in the middle of the woods somewhere. There is a simple, quiet joy to this music. The honesty and passion with which it is played is infectious.Like the resonator guitar work of Ross Hammond's recent  Follow Your Heart, this is simple music, played beautifully-and anitdote for these stressful times.

Scheinman has penned all the compositions on this album, all fifteen of them. All are relatively short pieces ranging from the 37 second “Bug in the Honey” to the almost five minute “The Road to Manilla.” They have homey names like the evocative “Hive of Bees,”dance-like  “Don’t Knock Out the Dog’s Teeth,” the shit-kicking, hoe-down sound of “Deck Saw, Porch Saw,”  the droning "Broken Pipeline"and the Celtic inspired “Annabelle and the Bird.”

The musicians are all excellent, each lending their own texture to this raw, emotional music. Bill Frisell’s filigreed guitar work is woven through Scheinman’s songs like fine threads of gold spun into a tapestry.  Accompanying guitar, tuba and banjo work by Danny Barnes and guitar and banjo work by Robbie Fulks are seamlessly intertwined to create Scheinman’s musical vision. Robbie Gjersoe’s delicate resonator guitar adds another voice on "Broken Pipeline" and “Deck Saw, Porch Saw.”

Throughout it all, Scheinman’s violin is a clarion voice. Whether her ostinato bowing simulates eerie urgency, her pizzicato plucking builds rhythmic intensity or her poignant playing is used to state a particularly moving melody line she has complete control of the emotional impact of her music.

There is something about wordless fiddle music like this, despite the obvious differences in the musicality and spirit of each composition, when listened to in one sitting, the songs all seem to melt into each other like separate pads of butter in a hot skillet.  But instead of this being a fatal flaw it is admirable attribute. The music is served up like a suite that has some shining highlights, but it stands as a totally unified piece of art. An honest effort to pay homage to a music born from hardship but never victim to despair. One can listen to this album on repeat mode, as I have, and never get weary of its haunting melodies, nor doubt its underlying message of hope. There is nothing revolutionary about this music, but  Jenny Scheinman’s Here on Earth  is a reminder that sometimes the simplest music can make the greatest impression.