Description
Early in the recording of her evocative new album, One Hundred Years Today, violinist
and composer Jenny Scheinman turned to her band in the studio and exclaimed, "More
apocalyptic! This is end-of-times jazz!" She had reconvened the superb, sensitively attuned
ensemble first heard on her 2024 album All Species Parade: guitarists Bill Frisell and
Julian Lage, pianist Carmen Staaf, bassist Tony Scherr, and drummer Kenny Wollesen. With
seven new compositions in hand, largely inspired by her Palestinian Jewish grandmother's
travels through Europe roughly a century ago, Scheinman and company were exploring
emotional parallels between the years leading up to World War II and the present moment.
She imagined the music flowing like a secret code passed between generations, a means of
creating connection in times of upheaval.
"The phrase One Hundred Years Today is really another way of saying eternity,"
Scheinman says. "Every song is like a message in a bottle to a future generation, and at the
same time the opening of a message from 100 years before."
Highlights include the wistful "Stars of the Lower Deck," which evokes her grandparents'
shipboard romance; the lively, swing-driven "Alive at the Kakadu," inspired by the vibrant
nightlife of Weimar-era Berlin; and "The Edge of Dawn," which captures the growing
shadow of war. "Turns the Wagon Wheel" opens the album with an ardent groove and
expansive improvisation, while "Django in America" celebrates Django Reinhardt's
rebellious spirit and freedom from convention. The ethereal trio piece "Dream Beguine"
offers a moment of beauty and escape, and the closing "So Many Moons" serves as a tender
expression of gratitude and remembrance.
Through these seven compositions, Scheinman found poetic solace in the ways music and
creativity offered a lifeline of hope, and even a means of organized resistance. "In times of
struggle, it's more important than ever to continue making music and art," Scheinman
explains. "It brings joy to the world, but can also let the powers that be know we are
listening, and bearing witness."
As Scheinman composed the album, she kept a quote from Linda Ronstadt hanging on her
wall. It reads: "They sing so the subsequent generations won't forget what the current
generation endured, or dreamed, or delighted in." Indeed, like a message in a bottle washed
ashore, One Hundred Years Today exults in humanity's eternal need to dream, delight and,
ultimately, endure.
