Northern California-reared violinist and composer Jenny Scheinman is a central pillar of contemporary American roots and avant-jazz. Renowned for her borderless musical imagination, Scheinman’s work effortlessly bridges the vernacular idioms of rural folk, swing, and chamber music with improvisational freedom. Following 2024’s widely acclaimed All Species Parade, Scheinman reconvenes her stellar six-piece ensemble for a deeply narrative-driven program. Drawing from personal lineage, historical memory, and thematic weight, her fiddle acts as both a lead voice and a conduit for ancestral codes, framing acoustic composition as a vital vessel of survival, bearing witness across centuries of cultural upheaval.

Conceptualized after discovering a cache of postcards detailing her Palestinian Jewish grandmother’s decade-long musical migration across 1930s Europe, One Hundred Years Today explores emotional parallels between pre-WWII authoritarianism and contemporary instability. Dubbed by Scheinman as "end-of-times jazz," the record moves with cinematic grace.

The two-guitar interplay of Julian Lage and Bill Frisell provides an extraordinary harmonic canvas for Scheinman's violin. On "Stars of the Lower Deck," Lage’s clean, flowing acoustic lines mirror the wide-eyed optimism of shipboard romance, while Frisell lays down a subtle, nuanced funk undercurrent on the groove-driven "Turns the Wagon Wheel." The pair join Scheinman in a bare-bench trio on "Dream Beguine," weaving a translucent, magical nest of counterpoint around her singing fiddle. Grounding this guitar dialogue is the sensitive, swing-honed engine of pianist Carmen Staaf, bassist Tony Scherr (whose pulsing, heartbeat-like four-eighth-note bassline anchors "Turns the Wagon Wheel"), and drummer Kenny Wollesen. 

From the Django Reinhardt-channeling anarchy of "Django In America" to the haunting, Hal Willner-dedicated eulogy "So Many Moons," One Hundred Years Today is a spellbinding message in a bottle - and an enduring, triumphant act of bearing witness.