Jenny Scheinman * One Hundred Years Today LP

On One Hundred Years Today, violinist and composer Jenny Scheinman transforms family history into a vivid meditation on memory, upheaval, and the enduring power of music. Reuniting the extraordinary ensemble from All Species Parade—guitarists Bill Frisell and Julian Lage, pianist Carmen Staaf, bassist Tony Scherr, and drummer Kenny Wollesen—Scheinman creates music that moves between lyrical intimacy, adventurous improvisation, and what she calls “end-of-times jazz.”

The album was inspired by a recently discovered trove of postcards documenting the travels of Scheinman’s Palestinian Jewish grandparents, musicians who spent a decade moving through Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa between 1926 and 1937. Their story offers a window into a generation of artists creating connections amid political instability and rising authoritarianism.

Scheinman imagines each composition as a message passed between generations: a coded transmission from the past and a signal to the future. Songs such as “Turns the Wagon Wheel,” “Stars of the Lower Deck,” “Alive at the Kakadu,” and “The Edge of Dawn” trace themes of love, freedom, danger, and resilience, while tributes to Django Reinhardt and Hal Willner extend the album’s spirit of fearless creativity.

Written partly on her grandmother’s piano, One Hundred Years Today is ultimately a testament to music as remembrance, resistance, connection, and hope.