Violinist
Jenny Scheinman's instrumental companion recording to her eponymously titled vocal-emphasized effort of the same time period in 2008 is both an opposite reaction to pop styles and an extension of orchestral music with modern-day twists and turns. It reflects her time working with electric guitarist
Bill Frisell, who appears on this date, and also gives a bigger picture of her classical influences via a huge string ensemble, while hinting at the modern creative jazz where her violin voicings take a firmer grip at the core. Pianist
Jason Moran is a major player on many of the selections, as is drummer
Kenny Wollesen, while guests
Ron Miles on trumpet and clarinetist
Doug Weiselman contribute on select tracks. The music can be serene, broken-hearted, energized, or hopped-up depending on the progression of wide-ranging moods
Scheinman and her differently sized groups are able to envision and call forth. Depending on your taste level, the variations are not jarring, but they do offer serious food for thought. Setting this yin/yang tone, "Born into This" is pretty, crystalline, tiptoe music with
Frisell and the strings; "I Heart Eye Patch" is a bouncy, romping chase scene; "Three Bits and a Horse" features the trumpet of
Miles galloping along via a polka facade; and "That's Delight" is a middling swing with
Scheinman's lead violin and
Moran's curious piano. The serene string-driven numbers include the slow, symphonic, pastoral "Ana Eco" and "Einsamaller" performed live in concert, while "Ripples in the Aquifer" is reverent and hymnal. Contrasting tracks include the long, funky, jamming street strut "Hard Sole Shoe," loaded up with
Moran's crazy piano; the march-cartoon
Raymond Scott-styled "The Careeners"; and "Song for Sidiki," with its mix of choppy rhythms, bass clarinet, and folk and Nigerian highlife elements.
Scheinman's feature on
Duke Ellington's "Awful Sad" is a churchy type blues, and "Processional" features the twangy guitar of
Frisell. Their collaboration in the electric guitarist's various groups is best represented during the program's end-game cut, as "Old Brooklyn" wrings out the emotional sponge in a calmed, spiritual fashion for a much larger entity as outlined by
Weiselman's pithy clarinet. This effort from
Scheinman (who also plays a little piano here and there) is intriguing and seductive from start to finish, fully realized, startlingly beautiful, and rich beyond any of her other recordings. It comes with a most high recommendation. ~ Michael G. Nastos, All Music Guide
