Jenny Scheinman...her voice [is] a friendly and pure instrument that she invests with honesty and a childlike affection for her material.--

Genre is irrelevant, categories are deaf. This theory couldn't be better argued than by noted composer, violinist, and singer Jenny Scheinman's two new recordings on Koch Records:Crossing The Field and Jenny Scheinman. If Scheinman learned anything from her childhood growing up in a remote rural town of 300 people in northern California two hours by car from the nearest deputy sheriff, in a home with no electricity or phone and traveling often by horse, it was to appreciate and make use of everything. In these two unprecedented albums she does just that, unabashedly embracing it all: the violin and the fiddle, the epic orchestral and the narrative, the dance and the meditation, the raw and the rocking. From small town living to becoming an acclaimed artist working with the likes of Norah Jones, Bill Frisell, Lucinda Williams, Madeleine Peyroux, Marc Ribot and countless others, Scheinman leaps into the deep waters of American music, both vocally and instrumentally, spotlighting her singular talents as an idiosyncratic songwriter.

ARTIST WEBSITE:http://www.jennyscheinman.com/

IMN ARTIST PAGE:http://www.imnworld.com/jennyscheinman

...Ms. Scheinman is a killer player... She has the street musicians trick of getting attention with the pure power of a single, perfect note. --

On Crossing The Field, the lush and cinematic arrangements feature stand-out performances by longtime collaborator and Grammy Award-winning guitarist Bill Frisell, jazz-piano extraordinaire Jason Moran (Blue Note), and a string orchestra led by founding members of the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, who are known for their ongoing work in Yo-Yo Mas Silk Road Project. Ranging from sweeping symphonic passages to hard swinging jazz trios, the 12 original compositions and one Duke Ellington cover - Awful Sad - soar with elegance, conviction, and groove.

Jenny Scheinman combines original songs with renditions of old-time country and blues selections by the likes of Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams, Tom Waits, Mississippi John Hurt, and several others. Scheinman grew up in the remote rural northwest and in many ways this recording is an intimate letter home. She finds herself within the storied tradition of strong, plainspoken female country singers who bring reality and unadorned honesty to hard-won songs of love and life. Scheinman began showcasing her singing tunes at her summer residency at The Living Room (NYC) with Norah Jones and the Handsome Band backing her up, and at her long-running Tuesday night residency at Barbes in Brooklyn alongside guitarist/singer Tony Scherr. Scherr, known for his visceral productions and passionate playing, produced and recorded the eponymous album to eight-track analog tape in his Brooklyn home studio.

278 Main Street , Gloucester, MA 01930 | Tel: 978/283-2883 Fax: 978/283-2330 | http://www.imnworld.com/ INTERNATIONAL MUSIC NETWORK

MUSIC REVIEW

Aharmonioussound ByJoanAnderman,GlobeStaff|June10,2008 ThebackporchmeetsthefrontparlorwhenJennyScheinmanplaysmusic.Hertakeonfolkandbluegrassisuncommonlyrefined,whilejazzturnsearthyandplainspokeninScheinman'shands.TheBrooklynbasedviolinistandcomposerhasmadeanameasbothanexpansiveyoungbandleaderandanindemandsidewomanbackingartistslikeBillFrisell,NorahJones,andLucindaWilliams,butnowScheinmanistakingaturninthespotlightandatthemicrophonetouringinsupportofherfirst,selftitledvocalalbum. HershowattheMFA'sRemisAuditoriumwasanabsolutepleasure.Shesingslikesheplays,indeclarativephrases,unflashybutrousing,eachnotechosenforitsmusicalandemotionalresonance.(Shealsodresseslikesheplays,inasurprisinglyharmoniouscomboofclingysummerdressandscuffedbrownoxfords.)MostsongsstartedwithScheinmanholdingherviolinlikeaguitar,strummingorpluckingthehumblestplinkingsoundsimaginable;thenthebandwouldeasein,buildingburnishedwaltzesandgracefulthighslappersandgentlypiercingrocksongsonanelectricandanacousticguitar(AdamLevyandRobbieGjersoe)anduprightbass(ToddSickafoose). Thesetlistwasassubtlyeclecticandevocativeastheplaying:Scheinman'sartful,thoughtfuloriginalsfitbeautifullyalongsideatartreadofJellyRollMorton's"Winin'BoyBlues,"LucindaWilliams'stoughasnailstearjerker"KingofHearts,"aswingingtakeontheromanticPlatters'shit"TwilightTime,"andtraditionalslike"IWasYoungWhenILeftHome"andtheMississippiJohnHurtobscurity"MissCollins."Maybeit'shercleareyedapproachtowhatevershe'splayingthatmakesScheinman'sgenreblurringrepertoirefeelsoseamlessandofapiece.Bloodtiesaretheglueonthenewalbum,wherethecoversaresongsshelearnedasagirlfromherparentsandtheoriginalsareunflinchingfamilyportraits."NewspaperAngels"isamelancholysketchofherisolatedhometowninNorthernCalifornia,and"TheGreen"tellsthetrueandhauntedstoryofheraunt,whodisappearedonedaywithoutaword.SheroadtestedseveralbrandnewsongsattheMFA,aswell,oneaminimalistrocktuneaboutherjudgmentaloldersister,anotherafolksongwithafascinatingvantagepointfromwhichthesinger wondersifherlover'saffectionswouldbetruerifhewereherbrother.Evenontheevening'smostadventurousnumber,amodernpopmeditationbyRebeccaFanyathatScheinmanhasdubbed"Rebecca'sSong,"theartist'sluminousviolinsoloajigsawpuzzleoflong,fattonesandsurprisingsquiggleswasanchoredbyanextraordinarysenseofhumanityandhumility.IfonlyTomWaitscouldhaveheardherclosetheshowwith"Johnsburg,Illinois."It'soneofWaits'srareautobiographies,anuncharacteristicallysweetlovesongwrittenintheearly'80sabouthisnewwife,andScheinmanbroughtitplaintively,tenderlytolife.

June 11, 2008

A Violinist With Stories to Share (and Sing)

By NATE CHINEN

One evening last month, the violinist Jenny Scheinman settled in for her customary early set at Barbs,

the cozy Park Slope bar that has long been her second home. Though she has been heralded over the

last five years as a venturesome improviser, her first number was a vocal feature, I Was Young When I

Left Home, one of many traditional songs associated with the young Bob Dylan. Ms. Scheinman,

cradling her violin in the crook of an elbow, sang in a clear, agreeable tone, with a hint of nasal twang.

She wasnt dabbling in this air of rusticity. The song appears on her self-titled new album, along with

tunes by Jimmy Reed and Mississippi John Hurt and a handful of originals. Released by Koch Records

two weeks ago, the album presents Ms. Scheinman as a folk singer. She took the same stance at Barbs,

as she will again on Wednesday night at Joes Pub, with a band that includes the albums producer and

guitarist, Tony Scherr.

Publicly this may mark some new terrain for Ms. Scheinman, 35, but it isnt really that much of a

stretch. In recent years she has worked closely with the folk-pop chanteuses Norah Jones and

Madeleine Peyroux, and more casually with the singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams. And singing has

been part of the picture for Ms. Scheinman since her distinctly agrarian childhood. Even in her

approach to instrumental music, lyricism prevails.

A song isnt just a sort of mathematical puzzle for her; it has a real emotional meaning, the guitarist

Bill Frisell said at the Village Vanguard in April, between jubilant sets by his all-strings 858 Quartet,

which includes Ms. Scheinman. She can play out or free or whatever, but you always hear that center,

that melody thing, which is so important.

Ms. Scheinman proved that point in performance with Mr. Frisell, both at the Vanguard and on his

recent album History, Mystery (Nonesuch). She makes an even stronger case as a soloist and

composer on another new album, her own instrumental Crossing the Field, which features Mr. Frisell,

the pianist Jason Moran and strings. (Due out in the fall, its now available as a download at

kochentertainment.com.)

Crossing the Field offers a dazzlingly broad perspective on Ms. Scheinmans musical interests:

dissonant chamber music, jumpy tarantellas, frenetic swing. All the music, save for one Duke

Ellington ballad, was written in seclusion on the Big Island of Hawaii, as one prolific outpouring after

a grueling three-day hike. Its an eclectic but focused work.

For now, though, the vocal record commands a greater share of Ms. Scheinmans attention. Ive taken a

bit of a conscious turn towards popular music, or music for regular people, she said at a Peruvian

restaurant in the East Village, shortly before a trip to Nashville for a recording session with Mr. Frisell.

For a while I considered the music I was doing to be extremely peripheral. I felt very steeped in a fringe

community.

That notion of periphery applies to some of the experimental music Ms. Scheinman has played in the

last decade, with musicians like the violinist Carla Kihlstedt and the guitarist Nels Cline. In another

sense it could just as easily describe her experience as a product of rural Northern California, growing

up in what she has called the westernmost house in the continental United States, six hours north of

San Francisco by winding road. In the summer her family lived outdoors, using running water from a

stream.

Music was all about a forum for people to get together and revel, she said. My dad would put on

town cabarets three times a year. Her parents, amateur folk musicians, encouraged their childrens

piano and violin studies, and Ms. Scheinman took part in fiddle festivals, arts camps and chamber

music workshops. There wasnt much else in the way of outside musical influence: for a long time she

didnt listen to records, because her family had no electricity. (Later, she said, they installed a

windmill.)

I missed my generation, in a sense, because we didnt really listen to the radio, Ms. Scheinman said.

But I loved Randy Newman, I loved Patsy Cline. We listened to a lot of Hank Williams; that era of

country music was what was in the bars growing up. She corrected herself: The bar. There was only

one.

After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, in the mid-1990s, Ms. Scheinman fell in

with the creative music scene in the Bay Area, playing with Ms. Kihlstedt and others, like the Rova

Saxophone Quartet. She also worked with more commercial concerns, like the Hot Club of San

Francisco, which traffics in Gypsy swing.

In 1999 she moved to New York, where she busked on the occasional subway platform. In time she met

musicians like the pianist Myra Melford. A few years ago she began playing on most Tuesday nights at

Barbs, treating the gig as a workshop. The shape and size and sound of that room has had an

influence on me, she said, citing her 2005 album, 12 Songs (Cryptogramophone), as partly a product

of that influence.

The vocal album, she said, wasnt very intentional. It originated as a 60th-birthday present to her

father. There were a lot of songs he sang to me as a kid, and that I sang with him. She recorded

them at Mr. Scherrs home studio in Brooklyn.

I remember just taking the reels and going, Wow, Jenny, this is really good. This should be a record,

said Mr. Scherr, who recently made the transition from jazz bassist to singer-songwriter himself. He

played some of the music for Mr. Frisell, with whom he regularly works in a trio. More encouragement

came from Norah Jones, among others.

Approaching the project as an album, Ms. Scheinman decided to make it even more personal, adding

songs that she had written, including one touching country waltz about her old household (Theres

five miles between them and the nearest neighbor) and another about the disappearance of her aunt

(Whyd she decide not to warn us?).

Gradually she brought her songs onto the bandstand, at Barbs and the Living Room. My first gigs, I

was terrified. And thrilled, she said. Im sort of thrilled by things that terrify me. But its less

terrifying now; I feel like I can relax into the songs more.

Ms. Scheinman added that the experience of singing had improved her violin playing. What is it to

play lyrically, but without words? she mused. Theres a huge gap between them. But certain players

have that expressive quality in their playing, where you almost hear meaning. And as a singer, when

you do have meaning and can deliver that along with the music, it hones my awareness of whats

possible as a melody.

By: Dennis Cook It's hard not to fall in love with Jenny Scheinman. The violinist's raw talent, boundless creativity and ability to dovetail with a startling range of musicians and styles marks her as a singular talent. But there's an X-factor to Scheinman's appeal, a wondrous undercurrent that reminds one why music matters, why it stirs us to tears and laughter, why we hold it close to our chest and let it whisper in the long shadows of our lives. Scheinman taps into all the bright and heavy things of this world and channels them through her instrument and her thoughtful, adventurous compositions. While perhaps not a household name to Joe Six-Pack, Scheinman is a go-to player for the likes of Bill Frisell, Lucinda Williams, Norah Jones, Danny Barnes, Madeleine Peyroux, John Zorn and she's currently on tour with country great Rodney Crowell in a special acoustic trio with Will Kimbrough (dates here).

Her status in the music industry would be secured purely as a master session musician and side person but her intellect and terrifically searching nature have increasingly found her carving out her own space in the great canon. In 2008, she's released two amazing albums, the instrumental Crossing The Field (currently available digitally and out on CD on October 14 through Koch Records), and her debut as a vocalist, Jenny Scheinman, where she mingles her own tunes with Jimmy Reed, Tom Waits, Mississippi John Hurt and a stunning read of Lucinda Williams' "King of Hearts." What's revealed in the vast spaces covered by this pair of albums is the blossoming of one of the great musicians of our times. While a loaded thing to say about any player, Scheinman reaffirms that notion again and again, and her legions of top flight musician fans only grows year after year.

"It takes quite a lot of discipline to limit the possible. I'd have to work a lot harder not to have that scope. I'm always amazed at how musicians are able to limit themselves. This is just my whole life out on two records, but it wasn't intentional," says Scheinman. "I didn't realize they'd both be done at the same time but when I found out I was thrilled. It poses the questions, 'What is an American musician? What are musicians now after growing up in an era when almost anything was available to listen to?' This is more and more the case with the Internet. There's been so many influences in my ear, so all this stuff just comes out."

Jenny Scheinman by Michael Wilson

"You can't expect everybody to like everything, and nobody's wrong for not liking or liking something; it's just a matter of taste. I just try to follow my ear, and it led me to these two records. There's a whole group of people that don't even like vocals, and the reverse, too. I sometimes play a vocal show and the jazz Nazis come and ask, 'When are you going to play your instrumental music again?' And definitely the reverse when I'm playing a jazz show! People are longing for the clarity and impact of a song with words," continues Scheinman. "So, it's been a fun social experiment to do both in the same town, often for the same audience. I'm really impressed and heartened by how people like both. I have

no expectations that many people will like both. Either it's a sign that the music is connected and related in a deeper way than by category and bin and genre, or it's just a sign that peoples' ears are open, and if delivered honestly people respond to music."

Both albums are very welcoming, and like the artist behind them, they aren't hard records to fall for, though they couldn't be more different from one another in many ways. A subliminal bond exists through a number of musicians that play on both releases, including Frisell (guitar), bassist Tim Luntzel and drummer Kenny Wollesen.

"The personnel is similar, which is a sign that this community of players shares this love of a broad range of music. It's not just me, it's not just some loony in Brooklyn that came from a small town and grew up on cowboy music. It's a movement, I think, as evidenced by the two records," says Scheinman, whose latest material is expressly melodic but has dabbled in more avant sounds, sometimes getting downright out there, which she loves. "Some of the gigs I've done with Nels [Cline] have been just my favorite. Being able to tangle and unify with somebody like that is pretty thrilling. I think my next record will be with Nels, Jim Black [drums] and Todd Sickafoose [bass], which is a band I toured last year with my music. Nels is after the ecstasy; he's a very sentimental player. If my records sound sentimental in a literal way because of the melodicism and lyricism of it his are sentimental purely on an energy level. I don't mean sentimental in any sort of romantic love scene in a movie way. It comes from a very deep sentiment, and he's after something ecstatic."

Jenny Scheinman by Wendy Andringa

I'm not adherent to any particular idea of spirituality, but music is definitely magic and spiritual and a gift you're giving back to something. Because we don't make it up; we couldn't, it's too good for humans to have come up with.

-Jenny Scheinman

Crossing The Field finds her working with a large string section, brass and more in service of twelve compositions that hold their own against the one guest composer in the bunch, Duke Ellington. Her eloquence and sense of play echo Ellington's own, and Scheinman is one of the few instrumental musicians extending Ellington's creative line. She shows equal boldness on her vocal record, where she sings for the first time in the studio and puts her originals up against very strong cover material

"That was a very brave idea [laughs]. Basically, I was picking my favorite songs from my entire life from my family and playing with singers and I picked ones that I wouldn't be here without. To add originals to that I really had to be confident about them; I hope they match," offers Scheinman, who's assembled a very full, very together song cycle that carries the listener along on her personal journey. "I put a lot of energy into sequencing. To be honest, I'm sequencing after I've written two songs for a twelve song record. I think, 'If I have these songs, what other flavor am I craving now?' I'm trying to create a good story. I don't put all the good ones up front, and if they aren't all favorites I don't have a record."

The vocal album begins with Bob Dylan's arrangement of the traditional "I Was Young When I Left Home" further elevated by Scheinman's immediately captivating voice a warm, natural and wholly musical thing and then goosed nicely by the following track, "Come On Down," a road dust kickin'

Jenny Scheinman by Michael Wilson

rocker penned by Scheinman. It's not a tune even longtime fans likely saw coming but she's a natural electric blues-rock queen.

"Someone came up with a good phrase for it, 'a mystic rocker,' and I feel like they really got it. It is about God and sex, which is rock 'n' roll, at its best. It's the subject matter of the tune as well as the feel," says Scheinman, who often asks questions of the listener, stirring debate in what can often be a one-sided conversation. It is part and parcel of her gift for engagement, a tactile reach within her music that draws one closer, whether she's singing or playing her violin. "Songwriting is so intuitive that I'm not thinking strategy. I just wait till I feel like I have a song. But, I'm sure you're right. When Lucinda [Williams] or Dylan asks a question it's interesting in the context of the music because there's not a silence after the question; there's still music and the audience is there responding in some way. I've written a bunch more songs, and my next [vocal] record will have to be all originals I think. And a couple of my new songs do have questions as their main theme. One goes, 'When you gonna pack your suitcase and run, run, run away from me? When you gonna give your final farewell?' and there's "Who's gonna get your money when you're gone? Who's gonna have your children if you don't?'"

The vocal release weaves the music with the lyrics, the meaning and mood marbled together, notably on "The Green," which possesses incredible sensitivity on every level.

"There's a moment near the end where I always get this sort of out-of-body experience. I'm talking about 'The Green,' which I never really defined. When [guitarist/producer Tony Scherr] plays this response to the line, 'The green will take her some time or another,' he plays this ascending, blurry, angelic thing that disappears into the stratosphere. And it really is the ascending of a soul or something really spiritual, and it made me understand that word in a very deep way. We write things that we don't know how to fully explain, and he explained it the best way possible, with music, without words."

This spiritual element resides in the ground water of Scheinman's work in total. There's a soulful bent to her playing and composition that's much more effective and moving than the majority of what's delivered from most pulpits.

"I'm not adherent to any particular idea of spirituality, but music is definitely magic and spiritual and a gift you're giving back to something. Because we don't make it up; we couldn't, it's too good for humans to have come up with. Like we can't make plants; they're too beautiful and genius. And if you just give this gift back it gets deep and transcendent," says Scheinman. "That's what everybody is trying to do. There's nothing new about that idea, but I've been blessed to work with players that are going after something beyond human. It's a miraculous event to go to a concert and be moved with a bunch of strangers by a bunch of strangers onstage either singing about something or just playing something that has emotions you can connect with intimately."

Jenny Scheinman by Michael Wilson

Split personality Jenny Scheinman gets herself together By JON GARELICK | June 2, 2008

INSTRUMENTAL: My whole life has been unspoken, says the violinist of her first vocal album.

Jenny Scheinman is such an unassuming, modest musician that its easy to underestimate the radicalness of her two new CDs, Jenny Scheinman and Crossing the Field. Its not simply the proximity of the release dates. (The first disc is out now on Koch, the other is available on vinyl and as a download and will come out on CD sometime in the fall.) Its not even that the first is a vocal record and the second instrumental. Neither is it the differences in style. The first mixes country, folk, rock, and blues; the latter is an amalgam of jazz improvisation and open-form composition Ellingtons Awful Sad is here, and so are Scheinmans takes on American hymn tunes, parlor ditties, Kurt Weill, circus music, African guitar pop, and 20th-century classical modernism. That in itself covers a lot of ground. But compare her plainspoken delivery of Mississippi John Hurts Miss Collins on Jenny Scheinman with the frightening threnody of clashing strings and throbbing drone in her Einsamaller from Crossing the Field. This isnt like Esperanza Spalding going from a free-piano jazz trio to a jazz-pop vocal album, or Herbie Hancock writing a jazzy film score. Its not even the difference between Pat Metheny and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Its more like the difference between Maybelle Carter and Alban Berg.

Eclecticism is such a given these days that its almost a red flag another word for dilettante. But Scheinman has come by her eclecticism honestly, and as you cozy up to the two CDs, its soon clear that theyre part of the same sensibility someone enamored of American music, whatever that is. The

sound of Scheinmans Americana style is recognizable, but her radicalism has as much to do with audiences, performing traditions, and an attitude toward the marketplace.

Scheinman, who plays the MFA this Saturday night, has been a comer for the past decade or so mostly as a violinist playing in bands led by Norah Jones, Lucinda Williams, Bill Frisell, Madeleine Peyroux, and the Brazilian guitarist and singer Vinicius Canturia. In the meantime, shes been releasing her own records, exploring her travels in Eastern European folk and klezmer and all manner of Latin-American music. But on 2006s 12 Songs (Cryptogramophone), she more or less zerod in on the American-ness of her sound 12 instrumentals that in some cases seemed to cry out for lyrics.

Now, writing different songs, shes come up with some. Four of the 11 songs on Jenny Scheinman are originals: stories of an aunt who disappeared (The Green), an enigmatic drifter (Skinny Man), an isolated country family (Newspaper Angels). And theres the one full-on guitar-rocker, Come On Down, an invocation, a plea for love or at least salvation.

But its the opener, the Bob Dylan arrangement of the traditional I Was Young When I Left Home, that sets the table: Scheinmans affectless vocals, a character who could easily be a young man as a young woman, Tony Schers slide guitar, Tim Luntzels bass, all spare, with Scheinmans voice up front and untreated, her fiddle country-raw. That directness, the fully imagined unity of the arrangement, carries her through the whole CD and its apt choice of covers in addition to Miss Collins, theres Lucinda Williamss King of Hearts, Jimmy Reeds Shame Shame Shame, the Platters Twilight Time, Tom Waitss Johnsburg, Illinois, and fellow Brooklynite Rebecca Fanyas Rebeccas Song.

Recorded in Schers Brooklyn apartment, Jenny Scheinman leans heavily on his guitar, with Frisell, Luntzel, and drummers Kenny Wollesen and Steve Jordan. And its as much a guitar record as a Scheinman vocal record. Crossing the Field, on the other hand, entailed a full string section, with solo settings for Frisell, pianist Jason Moran, and cornettist Ron Miles as well as Scheinmans violin. Theres little here as simple as a 32-bar pop song form or a 12-bar blues. Even Hard Sole Shoe, which sets up a funky blues vamp for a Moran piano solo, spins off into call-and-response patterns for the string section, a passage of extended piano solos alongside a long string melody, a Scheinman solo, and then a mysterious extended string crescendo/decrescendo and fade-out with Doug Wieselmans clarinet over bass, lightly strummed guitar, and a powdery dusting of effects. Throughout the CDs, Scheinmans own playing defers multi-note pyrotechnics in favor of her warm tone, conversational phrasing, and rhythmic incisiveness. When her fiddle picks up the melody in I Was Young When I Left Home, its another voice, in conversation with itself.

If I dont want to be what people call eclectic, she says when I reach her over the phone at her home in Brooklyn, I would really have to rein myself in. Because Im certainly not trying to be. It just happens. And it may be just the plague or the benefit of my generation just listening from such an early age to so many different kinds of music and then taking a kind of intuitive approach to composition.

Scheinman grew up in Petrolia, Northern California, in what she describes on her Web site as the western-most house in the continental United States, in a community she calls the ocean end of a river valley . . . home to a mix of old ranchers and transplanted East Coast back-to-the-landers. Her parents were folk musicians, so there were music lessons early on. Even now, she says, when she thinks of

Twilight Time, shes more likely to think of her father singing it than the Platters, even though the Platters were much better singers than my father. By 14 she was studying jazz piano and theory. There was study at Oberlin Conservatory, an honors degree in English from UC-Berkeley, gigs around the Bay Area playing the fiddle-swing repertoire (Django Reinhardt/Stphane Grappelli pieces, Stuff Smith), and then gigs with the avant-garde scene centered on the ROVA string-quartet crowd (these sort of Bay Area thinker people, says Scheinman with a laugh).

She made connections in New York through the producer Lee Townsend, whom she knew from San Francisco hence Frisell and eventually Jones, Williams, etc. It was Jones who eventually encouraged her to make her own vocal record.

There is an element of writing songs with words that is an assignment, Scheinman tells me. Sometimes it all comes at once. But I practice it. It was a conscious choice to figure out how to write songs with words. And a lot of that research was going through all the songs that I grew up with. And you know, there are plenty of stories to tell, especially if youre just starting to write. My whole life has been unspoken, because everythings been instrumental.

At the MFA shell be playing the singing material and probably some new originals, with guitarists Adam Levy and Robbie Gjersoe and likely bassist Todd Sickafoose. And no drummer which will put the focus on the singing and the songs.

My next record will probably be all original. Theres something about telling a story thats true thats very satisfying and cathartic. Like The Green, the one from my aunt, is a true story. Processing things in general, talking about them, is so helpful, and singing about them night after night is very helpful personally. But also part of whats helpful about it is that youre singing for an audience, and the story, which is such a personal story, resonates with the audience, you feel the comfort of the whole world. Theres something about singing your own song thats an advantage if its a decent song. If its a good song, its really an advantage, because you know what its about so deeply, and you can really tell it.

All Things Considered http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91237647

Jenny Scheinman Makes a Vocal Debut By Jon Kalish

- Michael Wilson All Things Considered, June 10, 2008 - Jenny Scheinman is one of New York's most in-demand violinists. She's backed up everyone from Aretha Franklin to Norah Jones to Bono, and she plays classical music with a local string quartet and orchestra. She's also released many albums of instrumental jazz. But Scheinman's latest record, Jenny Scheinman, features her singing.

Scheinman estimates that she's played more than 200 studio sessions and club dates in the past year. "The schedule of it is hard," she says. "The actual real-life trying to figure out how much side-personing to do and how much leading to do and how to do all of it. At this point, I'm lucky enough to love everybody I play with. I'm not really doing so many gigs for the money anymore, which is really lucky."

More Than Luck

Producer Hal Willner says it's not just luck. "She's just one of those people that can do anything," he says. "I mean, she can play with anybody, anything; her solos are, of course, beautiful. She's an absolute chameleon to fit into a situation, yet be herself."

Willner has used Scheinman many times, including on the 2004 Grammy Award-winning album Unspeakable, by guitarist Bill Frisell.

Scheinman says that everyone with whom she's spent time ends up influencing her music in some way. This is especially true of Frisell.

"I've really played a lot with him over the last decade and have been able to study his music through playing it," Scheinman says. "Which is the very best way to study anything and see how he reacts to different players, see how he adapts to different situations, see how he leads his band. I'm loyal to people I work with for a long time, because in some ways, I learn more."

Strings and Swing

Scheinman has made a number of acclaimed recordings of her own in addition to the side work. One of her fans is George Robinson, a music critic for Jewish Week newspaper in New York.

"She's got classical technique, but she's got a terrific sense of swing and a good improviser's sense of structure," Robinson says. "She's learned a valuable lesson that I wish more improvisers would learn, which is, 'Say what you have to say and get off,' instead of, 'I've got a solo now. I'm going to play everything I know.' "

Scheinman just finished work on a new instrumental album: It's now available as a digital download and on vinyl, and it comes out on CD in the fall. She did all of the arranging for a large string ensemble another talent for which she's becoming known. Willner has used Scheinman to arrange songs for Bono and Lucinda Williams, and he suggested Scheinman to Lou Reed when the rock legend needed string arrangements for a song called "Power of the Heart."

"Right off the bat, she started playing things on keyboard, and I said, 'That's a great keyboard part,' Reed recalls. "She says, 'Well, it's actually a string part will be a string part.' And it was, and it's fantastic. The arranging and the playing keys in to the emotion of a song in a way that I haven't heard very often. It's probably one of the best experiences I ever had working with an arranger."

Voices in Her Head

Working with singers has been a big part of Jenny Scheinman's career. In fact, songs have always been in her head. Her parents were folk musicians, and she's been singing since she was a kid.

"I love singing," Scheinman says. "I love words. I love writing songs. I love puzzling over the lyric, over the end of a line. You know, a song teaches you so much, and I'm learning so much more about melodies even playing. You know, singing has taught me how to play melodies more."

But for her new recording, Scheinman has chosen to focus on singing and put the violin in the backseat. Scheinman's foray into vocal music will likely benefit her musical voice, Robinson says. And he says he'll listen to anything Scheinman records, though he's not crazy about her vocal debut.

"When the Stones first started playing, and they were doing British versions of great blues and R&B tunes, [Mick] Jagger said, 'I don't know why anybody would buy one of our records if they could get Slim Harpo's,' " Robinson says. "I'm not as enthused about Jenny Scheinman, which is basically her alt-country move. I listen to a lot of alt-country myself, but if I can listen to Gillian Welch, it renders somebody doing a similar thing slightly superfluous."

But Scheinman's fans seem to dig the singing. At Barbes, a small performance space in Brooklyn where Scheinman has been a fixture for several years, a recent singing gig was well attended. She plans to make another vocal recording, and can be seen singing and playing violin in the upcoming movie The Butler's in Love.

It was her first acting experience, but it was also just another in the dizzying schedule of sessions Scheinman played in the last year. And while she wants to spend more time leading her own bands, most of her work still comes as a session player.

"Mostly, I'm still just responding to the phone," Scheinman says. "You know, people call, and if I can do it and it sounds fun, I'll do it."