Jenny Scheinman Brings the Experience of Awe

Play your violin for us like that wild, joyful hippie girl. You who look as if you might have come from the steppes of Russia instead of the Lost Coast, a remote region of northern California prone to earthquakes and mudslides. You who galloped into school on a snorting mare, its hair used to string the bow you wave before grabbing the violin as if it were a chicken running around the coop. Roll your perpetually startled eyes at it, scold it, fidget, fuss and fiddle us through the roof, fiddle us over the moon, higher than jazz is meant to fly. Saw those strings with your stick as if they were logs from the giant redwoods tied together in a raft floating down the Trinity River as it snakes through Humboldt County. Fill the halls with the ozone of your passion. Play those swinging, bouncy melodies, that grooving funk/jazz, the restless tarantellas that make the listeners' ears dance, wounds them, then nurses them like the eternal caregiver. Play until the cherries burst in the orchard, until the wolves howl at the moon. Play until your band members want to let the music "spill over the edges and be their most expansive selves." Play Aaron's Rod until it sprouts blossoms and almonds, until all the species parade in pairs towards the Arc of Testimony and enter the temple where music is heard.

Jenny Scheinman wanted to create music that would hold us tightly in awe like an embrace from a small circle of friends. "In these times of unrest, technology has a huge impact on our lives, 24-hour news cycles, new generations that seem to have lost inspiration to create that which is the essence of life, I wanted to create something powerful, and fragile, and constantly changing. Something alive. Something that brought the experience of awe."

Her record All Species Parade (Royal Potato Family, 2024) contains 10 songs spread out over 72 bounteous minutes, three of which ("Jaroujiji," "The Sea Also Rises" and "All Species Parade") comprise a Duke Ellington-inspired suite that lasts 20 minutes. This approach is a departure for Scheinman, whose ten previous albums contained a more concise, song-like aesthetic.

"It's a long, long set, quite epic actually," she exhaled. "All the players have the opportunity to expand in the way only jazz musicians can while still retaining that Jenny signature of melodic narrative." The whole of it embraces the natural world and all its variety in a way that musicians are able to interact with in a quality similar to what is found in nature. The diversity of its species and the awe it inspires.

As the interview with Scheinman wound down, she had to get ready to head out on tour. Before leaving, she posted this on her Facebook: "I'm all packed and have a spare two hours. The kids are at school, and I have the house to myself. But I'm feeling spazzy and my mind is flailing. The cat's going to die. No one will come to the gig. This is bandleading at its worst. I call Jen Heideman, doctor and pianist extraordinaire, and fit in one last piano and violin session to take my mind off me. We plow through Mozart in E minor, Beethoven 4, and then part way through Brahms 3. Everything goes wobbly, and I have some sort of out of body experience. The notes on the page start shifting around and have rearranged themselves into some sort of mutation of "Shutdown Stomp." We stop, play it slow, play it fast, and we play it like Shutdown. This is some sort of 11th hour prank. And it works. It's a tease. A schooling. And it lightens the weight."

As one of her go-to guitarists, Bill Frisell has said, "A song isn't just a sort of mathematical puzzle for her; it has real emotional meaning. She can play out or free or whatever, but you always hear that center, that melody thing, which is so important."

So, go ahead and play you wild violinist until beauty and wildness and longing are one.

All About Jazz: Good morning, Jenny, I just got back from feeding our horses.

Jenny Scheinman: That's okay. I just got out of bed. I just finished chores. Do you know that I rode a horse to school every day till I was out of high school? And my daughter, who is 12, is totally into horses. She's an incredible rider. My parents have horses and they have cattle. They have a ranch, and we work with them there. Right now. I just have one horse for my daughter. She's a Jim Connor rider, and she does cattle work. She did this very cool thing this weekend. She was in this medieval festival as a mounted archer. I don't know if you've ever seen that like in old movies, but you ride with no hands because both hands are on the bow and arrow. And in this performance, you canter your horse down this lane and then shoot at various things, including something that's shot up in the air and you try and hit it. It's pretty spectacular. They're all decked out in medieval outfits.

AAJ: It sounds intense and difficult. I don't believe I could do that from the ground, never mind on a horse. I have enough problems roping when we do ranch sorting or cutting horse competitions.

JS: Yeah, we do that. We have a hundred head of cattle, or my folks do, so we have to do that three times a year. We have to sort 'em out in these corrals.

AAJ: All Species Parade has much to do with the area you were raised in, not a commune but not exactly normal suburbia either.

JS: This area has the redwoods. It has the beach. It has cattle land. It has the coastal scrub, It has a tremendous amount of rainfall which creates mudslides. And lots of earthquakes because these three tectonic plates are all crashing together. It's active and dynamic absolutely. The disasters around the vicinity are usually fires because of all the underbrush. The governor has said they are going to do controlled fires, but we haven't seen any. The ranchers will do it, though.

AAJ: Is there any earthquake activity near you?

JS: Oh my God. There's constantly little earthquakes, and there have been some really big ones. There were two last year that were significant and caused some damage, but I missed both of them. I grew up on a homestead, real rural, as you can imagine, riding a horse to school. But now I live in the nearest college town. Arcata is a town of 20,000 people. It's a very small town, but it's not, you know?

AAJ: How far did you have to ride to get to school?

JS: Elementary school was about five miles one way.

AAJ: More importantly, what did you do with a horse once you got to school?

JS: I just tied it up. It had water. I put it in a corral during high school. For a little while there was a school bus, so I'd only ride three and a half miles. Then I'd tie it up near where the school bus picked us up, and it would stay there until I got back and went home.

AAJ: I read a little bit about the fellow that settled Humboldt County, Alexander Von Humboldt. He was a polymath, one of the founders of modern geology and did a lot of exploration in the Amazon. Quite an interesting character!

JS: There's a great book about him called The Invention of Nature. It's a big book and a really good one. I recommend it totally.

AAJ: You did a movie Avenue with the Giants, Isn't that the name of the road that goes through the redwoods?

JS: It is. The movie itself has two locations: One is flashbacks to the Holocaust, basically. And the other half is set in Marin County.

AAJ: Nature appears to be an important subject to you.

JS: Well, I grew up in the country, but I then lived in cities until I was in my early thirties. I lived in the Bay Area and then to New York City. When I was pregnant with my second kid, I moved back out here which is very rural, and it was such a shock to be surrounded by this much fresh air. I thought I was going to overdose. On the record, I was looking for a way to talk about and really pay homage to this area. I tried it from a couple different angles, and I found that jazz being one of the most dynamic formats of music did it justice. It's tremendously interactive and focused on growth, the growth of a solo. You're using these relatively small springboards of songs, exploring and expanding them. It's in some ways my native language and music. I was really happy to have found a way to talk about the diversity and exuberance of nature through jazz and with such a tremendous group of people. It was really a fun session. We dove in with full trust and just the tremendous skill and talent of everybody involved. It made a pretty dynamic album.

AAJ: You can imagine a picture of a walk through the woods, and you're on a kind of path that leads through the woods that perhaps has been walked on before. And then there's various places you could go, almost as a metaphor for jazz. Jazz in nature.

JS: It's all about choices. You are really playing in the moment, and you're making choices about everything you do. It's up to the limits of your imagination, and I guess skill, what you can do.

AAJ: What comes to mind are Annie Dillard's books. For example ... .

JS: Wait, is that Pilgrim at Tinker Creek? It had a lot to do with somebody that was interested in nature, but until I picked up hers, I hardly ever read a book.

AAJ: Didn't you start by playing piano?

JS: My mom had inherited a Steinway piano from her father. I played that from a window overlooking the ocean on the furthest Western point in the United States. On the Homestead, I would cut out and practice, so no one would ask me to do chores or wash dishes. You know, I played piano concerts around the country. The violin was just something I picked up on the side and played it summers mostly, also fiddled Beatles tunes with my dad.

My parents decided to move out of the Homestead house and move down to this forest to get out of the constant winds. That was real hippie stuff, back to nature and all. Anyway, I was taking piano lessons in the town of Arcata where I live now and added classical violin lessons. It was a 4-hour round trip drive. Then when I was 12 or 13, I found the jazz records my father collected when he grew up in New York City. I really was digging them, but I think it was probably more due to classical training that I found it hard to get into them on the piano. The transition was so much easier on the violin because it is a melodic instrument you can sing to, and we used to sing.

AAJ: You talk about all that like it was so effortless, like riding a bike or in your case a horse.

JS: I went to college at a younger age than most, and I put myself through by playing in these Gypsy swing bands. Then I got into writing and was kind of obsessed with the whole avant-garde scene, but it wasn't happening in San Francisco after all the musicians began leaving for New York.

AAJ: Naturally, you followed them.

JS: Of course. I started playing at the Vanguard and met Bill Frisell.

AAJ: And the rest, as they say, is history.

JS: Pretty much. I mean, this is all I ever want to do even when I'm older.

AAJ: Well, that's a relief. I mean, you do have a family but those who love your music would say that's the most important thing. I'm kidding. Maybe.

JS: (chuckles) They both are important at different times.

AAJ: You've done so many interviews as everybody does when a new record comes out and get asked a lot of the same questions. What would be one question that nobody's ever asked you that perhaps you wish somebody had asked?

JS: That is such a cool idea.

AAJ: Listening to All Species Parade last night around 1 a.m., something came to me, insisting I ask you that.

JS: Well, I mean, if I put myself in the shoes of an audience, what does it feel like to play music? It is really fun. And I always wonder what it's like to live life without being able to play music. It's energetic, it's athletic, it's spiritual. It's very intimate with the other players. It's endless trust games. But the feeling of making music is sort of a constant out of body experience because there is no time. That's the experience of improvising with a band. It's also a little bit similar to the experience of writing music. That is something that's very connected to time because you're in tempo, even a rubato tune, even a tune that doesn't have a constant pulse has a shape in time. And so you go into this world that has a grid in a way. It has a feel and it has time, but you are living in the very edge of every moment. And there's very few things that can do that.

The other thing that's really kind of mind blowing about it is that, and I actually think that great music and the neurologist writer, what is his name? I'm forgetting his name right now. He articulated that it's only in music that we can hear multiphonic voices at once in a conversation. We really can't hear more than one person talking at once. I mean, maybe you can sort of hear, but in music, you can hear five people at once. And that kind of experience of connectivity is amazing as an audience. And to be in it is like being in the barrel of a wave. It's really very connected. That's the thing that popped into my head to sort of share the experience, I guess, of doing it. I'd like to be able to share that with people. I mean, that's why you play it, but there's really nothing like being right on the inside of it.

AAJ: So, improvisation is something you have to take yourself out of. It's nothing that you can think through. I know that from unfortunate personal experience, being a mediocre improviser.

JS: Sometimes I'm playing and I'm actually focused on, say, the bass and the drums, but perhaps I might even be soloing and making up a whole narrative. What I'm focused on is listening to other people, that bond between performer and audience. I'm going to let this dog out. Excuse me. He just wants to lie in the sun. I wouldn't mind joining him after we've finished.

AAJ: Did you listen to other violinists as you were developing your style?

JS: Yeah, I did. This kind of miraculous thing happened when I was about 13 or so. Some friend of my family came out to visit, and they must have recognized some potential in me for playing jazz or non-classical music on violin. They left a box of records at our house and included were about twenty jazz violinists. It was very calculated but like a magic drop. And I never knew who did that. Actually, a couple years ago, I was getting a shot at the doctor's back in the lab, and I for whatever reason mentioned that story. The guy that was giving me the shot said, that was my dad. It was crazy that he knew who that was.

Anyway, I was exposed to jazz violin pretty early, and though I wouldn't say that jazz violin in itself is a primary influence, it told me that was an option but you can do other stuff. You don't have to play Bach partitas or fiddle tunes your whole life. You can just make up stuff and write your own course in this music. I actually have a show that I tour with Regina Carter that celebrates jazz violin, and we deep dive into some of our favorite jazz.

AAJ: Who was the first jazz violinist you listened to? I go way back to Stephane Grappelli, his records with Django Reinhardt and then Martin Taylor, who is an amazing player. Susan Voelz, who plays with Alejandro Escovedo in his string band. Luca Micarelli. She played Annie, who was a busker in the TV series Treme.

JS: I love Stuff Smith. I was in the Hot Club of San Francisco during my college years That kind of put me through college, so of course, I know that stuff really well. I love John Blake. There's a lot of 'em. It's terrible to have lost Billy Bang, Didier Lockwood and Leroy Jenkins. Billy Bang was fantastic. There was a swing era of jazz violin that had a lot of good ones. Things got loud, and violin got kind of elbowed out for a while. But there's more now, some young players.

AAJ: On All Species Parade, you employ three different guitarists, all bringing their unique talents to the ensemble. Do they have specific roles to play?

JS: Bill Frisell is on every track. He's a staple in the band. Julian Lage is in there for that tremendously active and emoting, long acoustic guitar song at the end. And also "Jarouji," which he has a big solo on over the whole thing. Nels Cline is in just because he's my Californian brother, and he adds that energy and fun to "The Cape," the surf punk tune, and also "House of Flowers," which is kind of a sister to "A Ride with Polly Jean," a tune from Mischief and Mayhem (Self Produced, 2012).

AAJ: Before joining Wilco, Cline was with the band Geraldine Fibbers that was led by Simone Massaron feat. Carla Bozulich. He's one of the most inventive guitarists on the planet.

JS: I met Nels in my early 20s. I went down to Eagle Rock and stayed with him and Carla. He was playing with Scott Amendola. I've had the most killing side-person players ever, but the thing I feel like I haven't been able to do is have a real band, like a touring band. I've made a lot of albums that I'm really proud of, but you can't tour with the Wilco guitarist sixty days a year. It's not only that practical element, but also just the feeling of a band, the feeling where everybody's committing to this thing over the side-person work they do. They're not just signing on to it because it fits in their little slot, but they're somehow invested in it and it feels like family. You told me you also write for an Americana site besides All About Jazz. Do you know that I have a whole Americana side?

AAJ: I did hear about you doing something with Robbie Fulks but that's as much as I know outside of the Jenny Scheinman album.

JS: Yeah, well, we don't have to get into that, but yeah, I toured around with Rodney Crowell and Bruce Cockburn and Jimmy Dale Gilmore, and I have a couple albums that I sing on, one with Joni Mitchell.

AAJ: Well, I guess we'll have to do a second interview on the Americana side of you.

JS: Absolutely. When I'm off the road, talk to Kevin (her publicity).

AAJ: One thing that's striking about your music is there's usually a melody weaving through it. Even with the more freestyle type of music, it never feels like you're calculating what should go where. It's organic, I guess, rootsy, which kind of ties into Americana in a way.

JS: I think you're absolutely right. I grew up playing folk music and singing a lot with my dad. My writing is very, I would say, melodic and song-inspired or song-focused, even if it doesn't have words. And that's there in all my albums, whether they have words or whether they're jazz tunes. Also, violin can be very much like the voice. It's very lyrical and melodic. That's probably how I approach it, rather than, I mean, there are violent players that shred and play a lot of patterns and notes, and that's cool too. But my general artistic bent is as a melody-focused person, and I would say melody is something that is connected to singing, which is connected to words, which is connected to communication. So, it's more about communication than it is about music.

AAJ: To sum this up, could you give us an idea of what you are hoping the listener takes away from All Species Parade?

JS: Sure. A few of the tunes were written before the band formed, but they found their home and it was meant to be. Over the years, I've collected a bunch of tunes that needed a certain jazz band to play them, a band like this. These songs can really be about anything. But I've heard things said about them during other interviews that made more sense to me.

AAJ: Okay. I'll see you at the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville next March. It's not often we get to see internationally known jazz musicians in East Tennessee.

JS: Yeah, I love that festival. I played there last year and had a wonderful time.

Before Jenny Scheinman went to make last-minute travel preparations for her upcoming tour, or maybe laid out in the sun, she was asked to provide AAJ readers with some thoughts for the individual songs on All Species Parade. The following is what she wrote through email a few days later.

All Species Parade: song by song

"Ornette Goes Home"—This is a tune about what grows at home, and what you keep with you from childhood. Imagine what it was like for Ornette Coleman to be back in his hometown after years in NYC.

"Every Bear That Ever There Was"—This is for the big ones. The big mammals. Past and Present. For the ones that we fear and love, "The Teddy Bear's Picnic," "The Pink Panther."

"Jaroujiji"—The first of three pieces in the "All Species Parade suite." It's dedicated to the people that lived in the Humboldt Bay region before white colonization, the Wiyot. Jaroujiji is the name for our current county seat, Eureka, whose name is perhaps the most colonial/imperialistic name one could imagine, "I Found It." (note: The word jaroujiji means "where you sit and rest.")

"The Sea Also Rises"—The second in the "All Species Parade suite." An improvisation in the spirit of Duke Ellington. Here we feature Carmen Staaf and Kenny Wollesen.

"All Species Parade"—A meditation on a parade to which all species, past and present, are invited.

"Shutdown Stomp"—Here's what happens when you've been locked up for two years and the doors are flung wide open.

"House Of Flowers"—A re-writing of the "Three Little Pigs" story in which the final house, the solution, is a house made of flowers. A peace prayer. Also, the name of the cabin where I workshopped the music—a fishing cabin on the Lost Coast.

"The Cape"—A dedication to something as powerful and dynamic as "nature" needs something wild and out of control. Definitely didn't want this pastoral piece to look like a pretty landscape painting. Punk rock!

"With Sea Lions"—Meditative. Soundscape.

"Nocturne For 2020"—It was a long year. It's a long song. We hope this lullaby puts it to sleep forever.

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