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I'm not adherent to any particular idea of spirituality, but music is definitely magic and spiritual and a gift you're giving back to something. Because we don't make it up; we couldn't, it's too good for humans to have come up with. -Jenny Scheinman |
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Crossing The Field finds her working with a large string section, brass and more in service of twelve compositions that hold their own against the one guest composer in the bunch, Duke Ellington. Her eloquence and sense of play echo Ellington's own, and Scheinman is one of the few instrumental musicians extending Ellington's creative line. She shows equal boldness on her vocal record, where she sings for the first time in the studio and puts her originals up against very strong cover material
 Jenny Scheinman by Michael Wilson |
"That was a very brave idea [laughs]. Basically, I was picking my favorite songs from my entire life – from my family and playing with singers – and I picked ones that I wouldn't be here without. To add originals to that I really had to be confident about them; I hope they match," offers Scheinman, who's assembled a very full, very together song cycle that carries the listener along on her personal journey. "I put a lot of energy into sequencing. To be honest, I'm sequencing after I've written two songs for a twelve song record. I think, 'If I have these songs, what other flavor am I craving now?' I'm trying to create a good story. I don't put all the good ones up front, and if they aren't all favorites I don't have a record."
The vocal album begins with Bob Dylan's arrangement of the traditional "I Was Young When I Left Home" further elevated by Scheinman's immediately captivating voice – a warm, natural and wholly musical thing – and then goosed nicely by the following track, "Come On Down," a road dust kickin' rocker penned by Scheinman. It's not a tune even longtime fans likely saw coming but she's a natural electric blues-rock queen.
"Someone came up with a good phrase for it, 'a mystic rocker,' and I feel like they really got it. It is about God and sex, which is rock 'n' roll, at its best. It's the subject matter of the tune as well as the feel," says Scheinman, who often asks questions of the listener, stirring debate in what can often be a one-sided conversation. It is part and parcel of her gift for engagement, a tactile reach within her music that draws one closer, whether she's singing or playing her violin. "Songwriting is so intuitive that I'm not thinking strategy. I just wait till I feel like I have a song. But, I'm sure you're right. When Lucinda [Williams] or Dylan asks a question it's interesting in the context of the music because there's not a silence after the question; there's still music and the audience is there responding in some way. I've written a bunch more songs, and my next [vocal] record will have to be all originals I think. And a couple of my new songs do have questions as their main theme. One goes, 'When you gonna pack your suitcase and run, run, run away from me? When you gonna give your final farewell?' and there's "Who's gonna get your money when you're gone? Who's gonna have your children if you don't?'"
The vocal release weaves the music with the lyrics, the meaning and mood marbled together, notably on "The Green," which possesses incredible sensitivity on every level.
 Jenny Scheinman by Michael Wilson |
"There's a moment near the end where I always get this sort of out-of-body experience. I'm talking about 'The Green,' which I never really defined. When [guitarist/producer Tony Scherr] plays this response to the line, 'The green will take her some time or another,' he plays this ascending, blurry, angelic thing that disappears into the stratosphere. And it really is the ascending of a soul or something really spiritual, and it made me understand that word in a very deep way. We write things that we don't know how to fully explain, and he explained it the best way possible, with music, without words."
This spiritual element resides in the ground water of Scheinman's work in total. There's a soulful bent to her playing and composition that's much more effective and moving than the majority of what's delivered from most pulpits.
"I'm not adherent to any particular idea of spirituality, but music is definitely magic and spiritual and a gift you're giving back to something. Because we don't make it up; we couldn't, it's too good for humans to have come up with. Like we can't make plants; they're too beautiful and genius. And if you just give this gift back it gets deep and transcendent," says Scheinman. "That's what everybody is trying to do. There's nothing new about that idea, but I've been blessed to work with players that are going after something beyond human. It's a miraculous event to go to a concert and be moved with a bunch of strangers by a bunch of strangers onstage either singing about something or just playing something that has emotions you can connect with intimately."
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