Monday, March 07, 2011

Dasha debuts with a promising album Quality Time

DASHA debuts with a promising album QUALITY TIME
I think a whole life time is not enough to embrase the amount of beauty that has been written. (Dasha)
Hans Koert

Dasha debuts with a promising album Quality Time (English) - Dasha verrast met debuutalbum: Quality Time ( Nederlands)

Dasha has a unique combination of talents and will become one of the leading voices in jazz, Peter Beets claims, piano player, composer and a world class jazz pianist, as he is labelled on his website: She has a profound timing and a pleasant personal sound and the ability to listen ........ an essential quality. She seems to be naturally talented vocalist as she picks up the perfect tempo and right key for each song, Peter continuous in the liner notes. She is taking into account a lot of factors and you can just see by the the way she counts off how precisely she makes her choice.
Dasha - Quality Time ( Maxanter CD MAX 75969 ) ( Artwork: Storm Vogel)
Peter Beets, his comments may be a bit coloured, as they are close friends, speaks highly of Dasha's abilities. Recently Dasha's debut album Quality Time has been released by Maxanter; enough reasons to be critical of this promising album.
Dasha ( photo courtesy: Nikita Krishtop)
Dasha Skarokhodova was born in 1986 and raised in the Ukraine in a musical family. Her mother, a vocal teacher and choir director, learned her to sing and her father, now a Russian Orthodox priest, was a jazz trumpet player then, who introduced her, as a professional musician, to the world of rehearsals and concerts. As a kid she studied classical piano for years. When Dasha heard a record sung by Ella Fitzgerald she became mad about jazz music and, after she finished school, she studied jazz vocal at the State Musical College Estradnogo and Jazz Art in Moscow ( GMKEDI Jazz College) where she was introduced to jazz vocal by Irina Tomaeva. In Moscow at the conservatory she familiarized herself the songs that are known as The American Songbook and she learned to compose and to arrange. A few years ago she decided to leave Moscow and to study Jazz vocal unter the supervision of Manon Heine, Rachel Gould and Gusske Kotte at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague.
Frans Van Geest ( photo courtesy: Hans Koert)
This album is her debut album and features Dasha with her quintet, featuring Floriaan Wempe on tenor saxophone, Miguel Rodriguez at the piano, Frans Van Geest on double bass and Robbert Jan Van Straaten at the drums. The Us guitar player Joe Cohn plays on four out of the dozen tracks available on the album. Most tunes selected are from The American Songbook, like Gershwin's Nice Work If You Can Get It, Darn That Dream, Stairway To The Stars, You're Getting To Be a Habit With Me, Love Me or Leave Me and Cole Porter's You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To. Four tunes are arranged by Dasha, including All Or Nothing At All, which was one of her first arrangements made at the Moscow Conservatory. The tunes were recorded a year ago at the Studio Smederij of Marius Beets; the tracks with Joe Cohn are from June 2010, when he was in Holland to promote the new
Sanna Van Vliet album Dance on the Moon, at the The Hague Jazz Festival - another promising jazz vocalist.
Dasha ( photo courtesy: Nikita Krishtop)

This debut album by Dasha made me anxious. It was a pity that the album stopped after less then 50 minutes of music - I'd love to hear more of her singing ..... What a pity. Dasha has enough plans for the future, but first of all she has to graduate from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and she told me that one of her plans is, to give a survey of the development of jazz music ....... There is so much beautiful music that I would like to sing in the future, Barbara Streisand repertoire, maybe with strings, Brazilian music, movie music, music of classical composers, and beautiful jazz standards. At the moment there are no plans for a new album ..... but there will be a moment when I'll be ready to make it ... she told me. Now I am busy preparing my final exam project as I'm graduating this year. I think a whole life time is not enough to embrace the amount of beauty that has been written.
Peter didn't exaggerate .... Dasha's debut album learns that she is gifted with a great voice which makes me anxious to hear more of her. And it is it is not going too far to label her as a promising jazz vocalist, who might be even develop into one of the leading voices in Jazz, as Peter predicts in the liner notes.

On my way from Ukraine to Holland, in 2007, I didn't have any idea of what was wainting for me. The only thing I was sure of was my love for music, my eagerness to learn and my desire to sing, to sing as much as possible. (Dasha in the liner notes)
Dasha can be heard live in concert each Friday at the Gouden Hooft in The Hague and she will be one of the guests at the Breda Jazz Festival on the 3rd of June 2011.

This album, Quality Time, can be ordered at the Maxanter sites.
Hans Koert
keepswinging@live.nl

Dasha, still a student in Jazz Vocal at The Royal Conservatory of The Hague, surprised with her debut album, entitled Quality Time. Inspired by the voice of Ella Fitzgerald, she knew she would become a jazz vocalist and this first album shows that she has the skills to do so. She seems to be a natural talent to me who has the chance to become one of the leading voices in jazz. Keep Swinging loves to thank Dasha for this great album.
Follow the Keep Swinging blog at
Twitter or ask for its free newsletter.



Labels: ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home