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Interviews
Jenny Scheinman: Touching Many Strings
R.J. DeLuke
R.J. DeLuke is an indefatigable jazz fan and arbiter elegantiarum who aspires to ultimate hipness; also an upstate NY freelance writer for various media.“ I want to make music that the people like. Thats not true for everybody, and I certainly dont think thats necessary. But thats where Im coming from. So it is nice that people like it. ”
Jenny Scheinman, a violinist of eclectic style and taste, has been coming into her own in the music world; the jazz music world, if you will. This young woman, raised in an ultra rural section of California, now imbedded in the Big Apple, is full of music. She's also down to earth, and so are the sounds and ideas that spring from her mind and heart.
She comes off, in first encounter, as curious, open, and not afraid of taking a chance. Not unconcerned, but perhaps unflappable. She's not snobbish of music styles or forms. She plays delicately; and with passion. She spent some time in the San Francisco Bay area, but it seems as though it would be very easy to envision her there in a different time. Like the 1960s when the area was flowing with different music vibes, from the Dead, to Country Joe, to Jefferson Airplane (move over Papa John Creach) and many mutations of blues and rock and folk and jazz in between. In speaking with Scheinman, a vibe came across that is would not be hard to picture her bowing along side Jerry Garcia one day, Grace Slick the next and then Jorma Kaukonen. Or going over to sit with Dewey Redman, who also was in the Bay area in those years.
It's just a feeling. But not far fetched, considering her attitude, and, indeed, her background, that San Francisco in that era would have welcomed her.
Scheinman has already exhibited a penchant for playing in different scenarios, even upon her move to the hustle and bustle of New York City in 1999. She can be found playing alongside banjo expert Danny Barnes, or with guitarist Bill Frisell. She's performed in a trio with trumpeter Ron Miles in collaboration with a cartoonist, Bill Woodring. She's played Balkan music with Jim Black and Chris Speed, in a duo with pianist Myra Melford. She even had a brush with pop greatness playing on the Norah Jones mega-hit album Come Away With Me. She's also busked on the streets of San Francisco. She sometimes sings (though not jazz, she says, counting Lucinda Williams among her favorite singers) and plays piano as well.
"I was a real serious classical pianist when I was young, she says. "That was an influence. I really didn't start buying records until I was a teenager. I listened to my parents record collection. My influences partly are career influences --- what I've been hired to do. I've always made a living as a musician, so I've played all different kinds of things. Things that people want violins for, whether it's string quartet or a violin for their klezmer band, or folk music. Tons of Stephane Grapelli-Django Reinhardt music, because that's part of the history.
"I was just on tour with Madeleine Peyroux. I really got into her whole world of music and met some wonderful musicians. And then Bill [Frisell]. He is a huge influence. I was a fan of his before he hired me for so much stuff. He's a big influence.
Make no mistake. Jenny Scheinman is a serious musician who is getting more notoriety with each performance and recording. Her latest, 12 Songs (Cryptogramophone, 2005) is a good example of her intriguing mind. The seven musicians unveiling the all-original works include Frisell and cornetist Ron Miles. It's gotten very positive critical reaction, with good reason. The melodies are interesting and the group, never in virtuoso form, serves the songs the way Scheinman envisions them. They evoke different moods. And in the violinist's mind, she sees them as adaptive to other modes.
"People hear straight-ahead a lot from the rhythm section. There's nothing in swing 4/4 time on the record. I think if you took all those melodies and put them over some sort of medium swing thing, or fast swing thing, they'd probably sound pretty jazzy. They're not those types of rhythms. The rhythm section isn't really a very jazzy rhythm section. (Rachelle Garniez, piano, accordion, claviola; Tim Luntzel, bass; Don Rieser, drums). That was intentional. My other records are with much more jazzy rhythm sections.
"They immediately go toward less orchestral, less sculptural, more spontaneous, interactive improvisations that don't have that much to do with the melodies, says Scheinman. "I guess all my records are like that, compared to straight-ahead jazz records. Mine are much more compositionally focused, melodically driven. But this one is the most like that.
She's happy for the good reception, but is already on the way to writing more music, having spent most of three days in December doing not much more than that. She's works hard with great focus in the studio, but once the work is complete, is almost taken by surprise when she hears it played.
Refreshing.
