Earthwise welcomes Jazz Holiday in the Park

Earthwise welcomes Jazz Holiday in the Park

Earthwise closes out its outdoor season with a co-bill of jazz groups, Alexander Hawkins quartet, and Jenny Scheinman All Species Parade.

Renowned violinist Jenny Scheinman presents music from her newest album, All Species Parade: an epic double-album celebrating the wild Pacific Northwest wilderness, where Scheinman was raised. Scheinman’s ensemble features pianist Carmen Staaf, guitarist Adam Ratner, bassist Tony Scherr, and drummer Mark Ferber.

Scheinman is an acclaimed violinist and composer who spent thirteen years on the NYC downtown music scene, leading both her own bands, as well as working alongside artists ranging from Jason Moran to Brian Blade, Lucinda Williams to Lou Reed, among numerous others. The New York Times praised her “distinctive vision of American music, suffused with plainspoken beauty and fortified by country, gospel, and melting-pot folk, along with jazz and the blues.” Upon moving back to the Pacific Northwest, Scheinman was reawakened to the extraordinary biodiversity of the region known as “The Lost Coast,” where she was raised, a stretch of mud-slide- and earthquake-prone coastline cut off from the main thoroughfares. This would ultimately inspire Scheinman to write All Species Parade, an epic and sprawling double album with an A-list ensemble. Though the album does evoke a sense of pastoral wonder, it also strives to capture in Scheinman’s words, “a charged relationship to nature, a feeling of being part of something bigger than ourselves, powerful, and fragile, and constantly changing. Something alive. With All Species Parade, I set out to musically reflect that experience of awe.”

Jazz pianist Alexander Hawkins appears with Karl Evangelista, guitar; Lisa Mezzacappa bass and Jordan Glenn, drums.

Alexander Hawkins is a composer, pianist, organist, and bandleader who is ‘unlike anything else in modern creative music’. Regarded as one of his generation's most innovative thinkers, his own unique soundworld is shaped by a profound fascination with composition and structure, alongside a love of chance and open forms.
His writing has been said to represent ‘a fundamental reassertion of composition within improvised music’, and his voice one of the ‘most vividly distinctive...in modern jazz’. As a pianist, he has been described as ‘remarkable...possessing staggering technical ability and a fecund imagination.’
Concerning his organ playing, critic Brian Morton recently commented that ‘[t]he most interesting Hammond player of the last decade and more, [Hawkins] has already extended what can be done on the instrument.’
He is a frequent solo performer, and also appears in groupings ranging from duo (with the likes of Nicole Mitchell, Sofia Jernberg, Tomeka Reid, Angelika Niescier, Evan Parker, John Surman, Han Bennink, and Hamid Drake), through to large ensembles. His co-led quartet with the vocalist Elaine Mitchener 'probably [sets] a new standard for improvised music with song'; whilst Togetherness Music, released by Intakt Records in January 2021, has been called '[a] masterpiece that can stand next to the best works of Mitchell, Braxton or Parker'. His Ensemble music, at the core of which often sits his long-standing trio, was said by The Guardian newspaper to sound 'like all the future jazz you might imagine without ever being able to conceive of the details.'
Hawkins can be heard live and on record with vast array of contemporary leaders of all generations, including the likes of Anthony Braxton, Joe McPhee, Wadada Leo Smith, Marshall Allen, Michael Formanek, Rob Mazurek, Chad Taylor, Taylor Ho Bynum, Harris Eisenstadt, Nicole Mitchell, Matana Roberts, Esperanza Spalding, Jonny Greenwood, and Shabaka Hutchings. For over a decade, he has also been noted for his performances in the bands of legendary South African drummer, Louis Moholo-Moholo, and Ethio-jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke.
He has been widely commissioned, by the likes of the BBC, festivals such as the London and Berlin Jazz Festivals, venues such as the Pierre Boulez Saal, and contemporary music groups such as the Riot Ensemble. He was named 'Instrumentalist of the Year' in the 2016 Parliamentary Jazz Awards. In 2018, he was elected a fellow of the Civitella Ranieri.
Concert appearances take him to major club, concert and festival stages worldwide, now earthwise. Note: after numerous free shows in the parks by Earthwise, the City of Palo Alto has changed its policy to allow music supporters to purchase online only $15 supporters' tickets to subsidize the event; the event is free to all comers. Tickets are optional.

Host or Publisher Mark Weiss dba Earthwise