Jenny Scheinman

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 7 new compositions in hand, largely inspired by her Palestinian Jewish grandmother’s travels through Europe a century ago, Scheinman was 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.” Scheinman, voted Violinist of the Year in the 2026 DownBeat Critics Poll, has collaborated with a cohort of stunningly inventive musicians over a two decade career. She’s played alongside the likes of Jason Moran, Brian Blade, Jeff Parker and Nels Cline. She has also toured and recorded with songwriting legends such as Lucinda Williams, Bruce Cockburn, Robbie Fulks, Rodney Crowell, Lou Reed, Ani DiFranco and Joni Mitchell.