Today, acclaimed violinist and composer Jenny Scheinman shares "Nocturne For 2020," the second single to be released from her forthcoming album All Species Parade, due October 11 on Royal Potato Family. The ethereal, near 12-minute opus features special guest Julian Lage on acoustic guitar alongside the album's core band: guitarist Bill Frisell, pianist Carmen Staaf, bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen. The final song on the album, it concludes the ten-track collection in an exhale of reflective musical meditation. Listen and share "Nocturne For 2020" HERE.
"'Nocturne For 2020' is a long song about a very long several years of global catastrophe. By extension it is also an elegy for all species and people(s) lost to colonial aggression and environmental destruction," says Scheinman. "It is part lullaby and part keen. I wrote it in the middle of nowhere—the Lost Coast, California. It was the first song we recorded for All Species Parade and this was the first take. It set the tone of the whole album. Before I counted it off, I said: 'Don’t play sad. Play fierce.'"
She continues: "Julian Lage's acoustic guitar solo stands out for me as one of the most amazing moments of side-personage I have ever witnessed. He just intuited his way into exactly what I had hoped for in his part: physicality, virtuosity, lyricism, violence, rhapsody. Something in the zone of Django, John McLaughlin (a la Shakti) and sarod. That pick sound on a taut steel string, ripping through the whole range of the instrument. When I listen to his solo I see tendrils and geysers, sirens and wailing, landslides, eruptions. It was so intense to hear it go down in the headphones."
The concept for All Species Parade began when Scheinman moved back to her native Humboldt County, California in 2012. For years, Scheinman nursed the idea of a musical homage to Humboldt, in particular the area known as the Lost Coast, a remote, earthquake and mudslide prone region of coastal northern California, where she was raised. Immersing herself in the sounds and cultural history of the region, she conjured through music the extraordinary diversity of life, past and present, in the Pacific Northwest.
While All Species Parade does evoke a sense of pastoral calm and wonder, it also strives to capture "a charged relationship to the natural world," Scheinman says. "A feeling of being part of something bigger than ourselves. Something powerful, fragile and constantly changing. Something alive. I want to recreate that experience of awe."
Jenny Scheinman will tour extensively behind All Species Parade including 17 dates beginning in September and stretching through October.
JENNY SCHEINMAN
Tour Dates
9/16 - Brooklyn, NY - Ornithology Cafe
9/27 - Chicago, IL - The Green Mill
9/28 - Chicago, IL - The Green Mill
10/4 - Detroit, MI - Detroit Institute of Art
10/9 - Santa Cruz, CA - Kuumbwa Jazz
10/10 - San Francisco, CA - Mr. Tipples
10/11 - San Francisco, CA - Mr. Tipples
10/12 - San Francisco, CA - Mr. Tipples
10/15 - Arcata, CA - Arcata Playhouse
10/16 - Arcata, CA - Arcata Playhouse
10/17 - Eugene, OR - The Shedd
10/18 - Portland, OR - Blue Butler Studios
10/19 - Seattle, WA - Earshot Jazz Festival
10/20 - Seattle, WA - Earshot Jazz Festival
10/21 - Vancouver, BC - Vancouver Jazz Festival
10/23 - San Diego, CA - Dizzy's
10/24 - Los Angeles, CA - Angel City Jazz Festival
