When violinist Jenny Scheinman and drummer Allison Miller make music together, it can feel much like a parlor game.
Not so much for its simplicity, because it simply isn’t that — but rather in the sense of capturing all of your attention, the way a parlor game would have done before the distractions of a radio, a television or an internet.
Parlour Game, the band jointly led by Miller and Scheinman, also features pianist Carmen Staaf and bassist Tony Scherr. (They favor the British spelling of the term.) The band’s self-titled debut, on Royal Potato Records, was released this year.
During Parlour Game’s session on Morning Jazz, the music was flowing but edgy, coming from a collective voice yet filled with individualism, as each instrument complemented and coaxed the others. Here is a video from the session, for a tune called "Top Shelf."
There are fascinating stories in this parlor game, which plays out live tonight through Saturday at Birdland in New York, and on Sunday at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.
