New Adventures in Downtown Sounds

[mjzee]

Even though the members of violinist Jenny Scheinman's indie-jazz quartet have worked together before, they'll be performing new Scheinman compositions when they play a dozen shows at the Village Vanguard beginning Tuesday. During a brief meeting earlier this month with Ms. Scheinman and guitarist Nels Cline in the West Village, she was asked when the band would rehearse the songs.

"At least the day before," she replied with a wry smile. As I was leaving, she handed Mr. Cline, on leave from Wilco, the sheet music for a new tune.

A lack of rehearsal is merely a challenge for superb experimental musicians such as Ms. Scheinman, Mr. Cline and the muscular, adventurous rhythm section of Jim Black on drums and Todd Sickafoose on bass for the project the violinist calls Mischief & Mayhem. They are all members of a very loose coalition that descended from the music scene based in SoHo lofts and at the Knitting Factory on Houston Street in the late 1980s and early '90s. Mr. Cline used the expression "not straight-ahead jazz" to describe the ground-breaking music played back then by Julius Hemphill, Tim Berne, Bill Frisell, John Zorn and others, who went beyond the door swung open by Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman and other free-jazz icons.

More here:

WSJ

[7/4]

thanks for turning me on to the article, I heard about this last week and I think it's cool they're playing @ the VV.