PARLOUR GAME
Jenny Scheinman & Allison Miller’s PARLOUR GAME celebrates the popular roots of jazz. It honors the groove, the conversation, the game, and the women that made jazz a social music. It features four musicians that have been at the forefront of American music for nearly 20 years bending genres, creating new ways of playing, mixing it up. Now they get to groove.
Parlour Game was born on tour when Carmen Staaf and Tony Scherr were subbing for the piano and bass player in Allison Miller’s 'Boom Tic Boom'. There was an immediate chemistry. "Even the edgiest material swung,” says Miller, “and we realized that we had found something really special. It felt so good!”
Scheinman and Miller met in Brooklyn in the early 2000's. Scheinman had come from a rural roots background and was immersed in the downtown NYC music scene. Miller had come from DC swing and had a steady gig with Dr Lonnie Smith. Their insatiable curiosity and general gregariousness brought them into a variety of different genres. Scheinman formed a lifelong connection with Bill Frisell and wrote and released nine albums featuring some of the most innovative jazz musicians of our time such as Jason Moran, Brian Blade, Ron Miles and Nels Cline. She also dove headfirst into the roots world, touring with a number of iconic American artists such as Lucinda Williams, Rodney Crowell, Robbie Fulks, and Bruce Cockburn. Miller jumped on the Toshi Reagon bandwagon and joined Natalie Merchant’s band. She taught at the New School and worked with Anat Cohen, Rene Rosnes, Brandi Carlile, and Ani Difranco. She became the special guest drummer on Late Night With Seth Meyers.
Staaf and Scherr are also versed in numerous American genres, and share a deep respect for roots music. Staaf has worked closely with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, and Scherr has played extensively with Bill Frisell, Sex Mob and Maria Schneider. Scherr once described Staaf as “totally unpredictable, and totally reliable.” Seated quietly at her piano, Staaf opens up a magnificent world of harmony while Scherr follows from below, grounding her most outrageous revelations.
“I have often played music that is in some way a reaction to jazz,” says Scheinman. “In this group I just want to play a great melody, feel the groove, and let the audience in. So much can happen at a show when everyone is in it together.”
The name of the band references parlor music, parlor games, and the great organizers whose movements were born in the parlor. Imagine the parties they had! And yes, it is about time that one of our newest super-groups features three women.
Jenny Scheinman - violin
Carmen Staaf - piano
Tony Scherr - bass
Allison Miller - drums
Jenny Scheinman
Jenny Scheinman is a violinist, fiddler, singer, and writer of songs with and without words. She grew up on a homestead in Northern California and has been performing since she was a teenager. She has worked extensively with some of the most innovative jazz artists in the world such as Bill Frisell, Jason Moran, Brian Blade, Nels Cline and Marc Ribot. She has also toured and recorded with numerous American songwriting legends such as Lucinda Williams, Bruce Cockburn, Rodney Crowell, Lou Reed and Ani Difranco. In March of 2015 she premiered a multi-media performance at Duke University entitled Kannapolis:A Moving Portrait which she continues to present in theaters around the country. She has released eight albums of original music: Here On Earth, The Littlest Prisoner, Mischief & Mayhem, Jenny Scheinman, Crossing The Field, 12 Songs, Shalagaster, The Rabbi’s Lover, and Live At Yoshi’s.
Allison Miller
"Allison is a refreshingly honest player. She plays as she is, which is great because she is such an open-hearted, humble, graceful person." – Ani DiFranco
Allison Miller gathers inspiration from a wide array of genres. Hailing from a robust Washington DC Jazz tradition, she engages her deep roots in groove and improvisation as a vehicle to explore all music. Described by critics as a charismatic and rhythmically propulsive drummer with melodic sensibility, Allison has been named "Rising Star Drummer" and "Top 20 Jazz Drummers" in Downbeat Magazine's acclaimed Critics Poll. Miller's band, Boom Tic Boom, features her compositions and is a 2014 recipient of Chamber Music America's "Presenter Consortium for Jazz" grant. All three of her band's commercial releases (No Morphine No Lilies, Live at Willisau, and Boom Tic Boom,) have been met with critical acclaim winning coveted placement in "Top 10 Jazz Album" lists, including, Downbeat, LA Times, Jazz Journalist Assoc., and Something Else. The band has been featured on NPR's "Tiny Desk Concert" series with Bob Boilen, "JazzSet" with Dee Dee Bridgewater, and "The Checkout: Live" with Josh Jackson.
As a side-musician, Miller has been the rhythmic force behind such mainstream artists as Ani DiFranco, Natalie Merchant, Toshi Reagon, and Brandi Carlile; and her jazz skills have been embraced by everyone from organ legend Dr. Lonnie Smith to avant-garde saxophonist Marty Ehrlich, guitarist Fred Frith, and bassist/composer Ben Allison.
She is a three time Jazz Ambassador of the US State Department and is on Yamaha's Top 30 Clinicians List. She conducts clinics and master classes throughout the world and is faculty at The New School for Jazz, Kutztown University, and Jazz CampWest. Her lessons and writings have been published in The Huffington Post, Modern Drummer, JazzTimes, DRUM, Tom Tom, and Drummer UK. In 2008 Allison founded the "Walter Salb Memorial Musical Scholarship Foundation" in honor of her late teacher and mentor. The foundation annually provides a monetary award to a promising young musician directed toward furthering their studies in music.
Allison endorses Yamaha drums, Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth sticks, and Evans drumheads.
Carmen Staaf
Pianist/composer Carmen Staaf is an active voice in the NYC and global music scenes. Her skills and approach have led her to perform in a wide range of settings, with some of the most influential and important musicians of our era. Currently, she is the pianist and Musical Director for NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater. Her past major performances have included the Playboy Jazz Festival in a two-piano setting with the legendary Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, Jazz at Lincoln Center with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and the Kennedy Center alongside Kenny Barron and Fred Hersch. She has been heard at the Village Vanguard, Blue Note, SFJazz and major jazz festivals around the world including the Montreal and North Sea Jazz Festivals, among many others.
Tony Scherr
Since coming to New York in the 80s, Tony Scherr has become one of the city’s most prolific and in-demand sidemen, playing integral roles in the music of such notable artists as Bill Frisell, John Lurie (Lounge Lizards), Steve Bernstein (Sex Mob), and Norah Jones, as well as some of New York’s better-kept secrets, such as Jesse Harris and the Ferdinandos, The Wollesens, Ursa Minor, and Slowpoke.
Tony has recorded most of these latter artists at his Brooklyn home studio, helping to foster and document a tight-knit, intimate scene of players who are as skilled and daring as they are broadminded and modest.
PARLOUR GAME
Jenny Scheinman & Allison Miller’s PARLOUR GAME celebrates the popular roots of jazz. It honors the groove, the conversation, the game, and the women that made jazz a social music. It features four musicians that have been at the forefront of American music for nearly 20 years bending genres, creating new ways of playing, mixing it up. Now they get to groove.
Parlour Game was born on tour when Carmen Staaf and Tony Scherr were subbing for the piano and bass player in Allison Miller’s 'Boom Tic Boom'. There was an immediate chemistry. "Even the edgiest material swung,” says Miller, “and we realized that we had found something really special. It felt so good!”
Scheinman and Miller met in Brooklyn in the early 2000's. Scheinman had come from a rural roots background and was immersed in the downtown NYC music scene. Miller had come from DC swing and had a steady gig with Dr Lonnie Smith. Their insatiable curiosity and general gregariousness brought them into a variety of different genres. Scheinman formed a lifelong connection with Bill Frisell and wrote and released nine albums featuring some of the most innovative jazz musicians of our time such as Jason Moran, Brian Blade, Ron Miles and Nels Cline. She also dove headfirst into the roots world, touring with a number of iconic American artists such as Lucinda Williams, Rodney Crowell, Robbie Fulks, and Bruce Cockburn. Miller jumped on the Toshi Reagon bandwagon and joined Natalie Merchant’s band. She taught at the New School and worked with Anat Cohen, Rene Rosnes, Brandi Carlile, and Ani Difranco. She became the special guest drummer on Late Night With Seth Meyers.
Staaf and Scherr are also versed in numerous American genres, and share a deep respect for roots music. Staaf has worked closely with Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, and Scherr has played extensively with Bill Frisell, Sex Mob and Maria Schneider. Scherr once described Staaf as “totally unpredictable, and totally reliable.” Seated quietly at her piano, Staaf opens up a magnificent world of harmony while Scherr follows from below, grounding her most outrageous revelations.
“I have often played music that is in some way a reaction to jazz,” says Scheinman. “In this group I just want to play a great melody, feel the groove, and let the audience in. So much can happen at a show when everyone is in it together.”
The name of the band references parlor music, parlor games, and the great organizers whose movements were born in the parlor. Imagine the parties they had! And yes, it is about time that one of our newest super-groups features three women.
Jenny Scheinman - violin
Carmen Staaf - piano
Tony Scherr - bass
Allison Miller - drums
Jenny Scheinman
Jenny Scheinman is a violinist, fiddler, singer, and writer of songs with and without words. She grew up on a homestead in Northern California and has been performing since she was a teenager. She has worked extensively with some of the most innovative jazz artists in the world such as Bill Frisell, Jason Moran, Brian Blade, Nels Cline and Marc Ribot. She has also toured and recorded with numerous American songwriting legends such as Lucinda Williams, Bruce Cockburn, Rodney Crowell, Lou Reed and Ani Difranco. In March of 2015 she premiered a multi-media performance at Duke University entitled Kannapolis:A Moving Portrait which she continues to present in theaters around the country. She has released eight albums of original music: Here On Earth, The Littlest Prisoner, Mischief & Mayhem, Jenny Scheinman, Crossing The Field, 12 Songs, Shalagaster, The Rabbi’s Lover, and Live At Yoshi’s.
Allison Miller
"Allison is a refreshingly honest player. She plays as she is, which is great because she is such an open-hearted, humble, graceful person." – Ani DiFranco
Allison Miller gathers inspiration from a wide array of genres. Hailing from a robust Washington DC Jazz tradition, she engages her deep roots in groove and improvisation as a vehicle to explore all music. Described by critics as a charismatic and rhythmically propulsive drummer with melodic sensibility, Allison has been named "Rising Star Drummer" and "Top 20 Jazz Drummers" in Downbeat Magazine's acclaimed Critics Poll. Miller's band, Boom Tic Boom, features her compositions and is a 2014 recipient of Chamber Music America's "Presenter Consortium for Jazz" grant. All three of her band's commercial releases (No Morphine No Lilies, Live at Willisau, and Boom Tic Boom,) have been met with critical acclaim winning coveted placement in "Top 10 Jazz Album" lists, including, Downbeat, LA Times, Jazz Journalist Assoc., and Something Else. The band has been featured on NPR's "Tiny Desk Concert" series with Bob Boilen, "JazzSet" with Dee Dee Bridgewater, and "The Checkout: Live" with Josh Jackson.
As a side-musician, Miller has been the rhythmic force behind such mainstream artists as Ani DiFranco, Natalie Merchant, Toshi Reagon, and Brandi Carlile; and her jazz skills have been embraced by everyone from organ legend Dr. Lonnie Smith to avant-garde saxophonist Marty Ehrlich, guitarist Fred Frith, and bassist/composer Ben Allison.
She is a three time Jazz Ambassador of the US State Department and is on Yamaha's Top 30 Clinicians List. She conducts clinics and master classes throughout the world and is faculty at The New School for Jazz, Kutztown University, and Jazz CampWest. Her lessons and writings have been published in The Huffington Post, Modern Drummer, JazzTimes, DRUM, Tom Tom, and Drummer UK. In 2008 Allison founded the "Walter Salb Memorial Musical Scholarship Foundation" in honor of her late teacher and mentor. The foundation annually provides a monetary award to a promising young musician directed toward furthering their studies in music.
Allison endorses Yamaha drums, Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth sticks, and Evans drumheads.
Carmen Staaf
Pianist/composer Carmen Staaf is an active voice in the NYC and global music scenes. Her skills and approach have led her to perform in a wide range of settings, with some of the most influential and important musicians of our era. Currently, she is the pianist and Musical Director for NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater. Her past major performances have included the Playboy Jazz Festival in a two-piano setting with the legendary Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, Jazz at Lincoln Center with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and the Kennedy Center alongside Kenny Barron and Fred Hersch. She has been heard at the Village Vanguard, Blue Note, SFJazz and major jazz festivals around the world including the Montreal and North Sea Jazz Festivals, among many others.
Tony Scherr
Since coming to New York in the 80s, Tony Scherr has become one of the city’s most prolific and in-demand sidemen, playing integral roles in the music of such notable artists as Bill Frisell, John Lurie (Lounge Lizards), Steve Bernstein (Sex Mob), and Norah Jones, as well as some of New York’s better-kept secrets, such as Jesse Harris and the Ferdinandos, The Wollesens, Ursa Minor, and Slowpoke.
Tony has recorded most of these latter artists at his Brooklyn home studio, helping to foster and document a tight-knit, intimate scene of players who are as skilled and daring as they are broadminded and modest.
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