Early in the recording of her evocative new album, One Hundred Years Today, violinist and composer Jenny Scheinman turned to her band in the studio and exclaimed, “More apocalyptic! This is end-of-times jazz!” She had reconvened the superb, sensitively attuned ensemble first heard on her 2024 album All Species Parade: guitarists Bill Frisell and Julian Lage, pianist Carmen Staaf, bassist Tony Scherr, and drummer Kenny Wollesen. With seven new compositions in hand, largely inspired by her Palestinian Jewish grandmother’s travels through Europe a century ago, Scheinman and company were exploring emotional parallels between the years leading up to World War II and the present moment. She imagined the music flowing like a secret code passed between generations, a means of creating connection in times of upheaval.

“The phrase One Hundred Years Today is really another way of saying eternity,” Scheinman says. “Every song is like a message in a bottle…