Jenny Scheinman: All Species Parade

After launching her career in the Bay Area, and steeping herself in the New York jazz scene from 1999 to 2012, violinist Jenny Scheinman moved back to rural, coastal, northern California, where she grew up. All Species Parade is a musical celebration of the area’s diverse ecological wonders, brought to life by seven musicians: a principal quintet with pianist Carmen Staff, electric guitarist Bill Frisell, bassist Tony Scherr, and drummer Kenny Wollesen, plus guest guitarists Nels Cline (electric) and Julian Lage (acoustic). In various projects these players have collaborated, in some cases, for decades. The swirling instrumental cohesiveness and lush coloration combine with Scheinman’s confident, genre-defying compositional approach to make All Species Parade her magnum opus. Her whimsical and raucous tunes, with deliberate or tangential allusions to Ornette Coleman, Henry Mancini, Django Reinhardt, and Dick Dale, fit perfectly, in suite-like LP sides, alongside her extended, romantic and reflective elegies. Scheinman’s violin, in conversation with piano and guitars (especially Frisell’s), soars to breathtaking heights of joy and descends to heartbreaking depths of melancholy, suggesting the beauty and fragility of life in all its forms.