Violinist, composer, improviser, bandleader, and (yes) singer
Jenny Scheinman has been a major force on the Brooklyn creative jazz scene since her arrival in the borough from the West Coast in 1999. She made weekly appearances at the Barbès club in the Park Slope neighborhood when not on tour or involved in other competing projects, using her residency there as a laboratory for trying out a variety of musical approaches and configurations, exploring styles from avant jazz to country-folk singer/songwriter fare.
Scheinman has become a high-profile player far afield from her Brooklyn digs, however, recording and touring as a member of
Bill Frisell's ensembles and backing up such comparatively mainstream artists as
Norah Jones and
Sean Lennon. She could be spotted in televised performances with the latter two stars, including an appearance in the string section behind
Lennon on a segment of
The Late Show with David Letterman.
Scheinman has also exercised her formidable improvisational chops in a trio setting with the late legendary drummer
Paul Motian and pianist
Jason Moran at New York City's Jazz Standard club.
Scheinman was raised in a rustic environment of idyllic beauty, the artistic and politically liberal outpost of Petrolia on the California coast (although both her parents were from New York), graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and made her first professional appearances as a violinist in the Bay Area -- her first recording,
Live at Yoshi's on the Avant label (a Japanese sublabel of DIW curated by
John Zorn), was recorded at the venerable Oakland, California, nightspot in September 1999 with the violinist leading a quartet featuring bassist
Todd Sickafoose, drummer
Scott Amendola, and guitarist
Dave MacNab. Landing in Brooklyn that same year, she hit the ground running and never stopped, recording albums for Tzadik (
The Rabbi's Lover,
Shalagaster) and Cryptogramophone (
12 Songs), her supporting bands including a who's who of modern creative jazz talent, including
Frisell,
Myra Melford,
Ron Miles,
Greg Cohen,
Kenny Wollesen, and
Trevor Dunn. In 2007, she headed out on tour with a quartet including guitarist Nels Cline (whose public profile had expanded well beyond avant jazz circles thanks to his involvement with
Wilco), bassist
Sickafoose, and drummer
Jim Black.
Meanwhile,
Scheinman used her ongoing residency at Barbés to explore another area of her artistic persona -- that of a folk-country-blues songstress with potential appeal to a wider audience than the comparatively small and insular avant jazz crowd. In 2008 came the release of
Jenny Scheinman on the Koch label, an album that put her evocative singing at center stage on a set of covers penned by the likes of
Lucinda Williams,
Jimmy Reed,
Mississippi John Hurt, and
Tom Waits as well as four original tunes. A companion album of instrumental pieces entitled
Crossing the Field was released by Koch the same year. Four years later, the album Mischief & Mayhem, featuring her quartet with Cline,
Sickafoose, and Black, arrived as an independent release on her own label. Whether live or on record,
Jenny Scheinman has proved to be an affecting and even compelling performer, melding diverse stylistic approaches with skill, artistry, and deep emotional commitment.
–
Dave Lynch, Rovi