Jenny Scheinman: Mischief & Mayhem
Jim Black, drums; Jenny Scheinman, violin; Nels Cline, guitar; Todd Sickafoose, bass
Jenny Scheinman’s Mischief & Mayhem continues to deliver the spunk, humor, and attitude that made their 2012 self titled album a darling of the rock and jazz worlds. Featuring the music of composer/violinist Jenny Scheinman, whose genre bending has made her one of the most notorious chameleons of modern American music (credits and collaborations include Bill Frisell, Lucinda Williams, Allison Miller, Rodney Crowell, Ani Difranco, Norah Jones, Jason Moran, Madeleine Peyroux, Lou Reed, Marc Ribot), this band is a vehicle for her sparkiest instrumental material.
The band features guitarist Nels Cline, who after several decades of cult status in the world of experimental music has garnered mainstream fame through his work with the rock band Wilco; the powerful bass player and producer Todd Sickafoose; and drummer Jim Black, one of New York's most idiosyncratic and exciting downtown drummers. Together this all star band guides Scheinman’s trademark melodies through the psychedelic territory of guitar loops, sick grooves, and frequent ambush.*
Mischief & Mayhem is a direct descendant of Scheinman’s first instrumental quartet which released Live At Yoshi’s in 1999. Back then Scheinman was part of a west coast community of players that included Sickafoose and Cline. Scheinman reflects, "Those early west coast tours were super influential. It was there that I made my first life-long musician friends. Some of us were just kids, but Nels had already been out there in the world and we all looked up to him. He pushed the limits without ever losing the song. He's a very sentimental player, so much love in there. Todd too. And with Jim in there we can get all swarmy and romantic but never lose the edge.”
A collaboration of champion innovators, Scheinman and her quartet channel an incendiary chemistry with an aesthetic NPR describes as blending, “hazy, dreamy grooves from the Heartland (with) the experimental jazz quirks of Brooklyn.”
*Note: Scott Amendola will occasionally substitute for Jim Black depending on availability
