Skhid-Side

- Dmitry Alexandrov has been remaining the best tenor-sax player in Ukraine. For years, for sure. Either in the eyes of numerous critics, musicians or listeners.
He's a founder and leader of a Skhid-Side band which has already become fabulous in our national jazz history.
There's more than a dozen world-class jazz musicians, including Randy Brecker and Mark Soskin, who highly appraised the level of Dmitry's performing.
Besides the fact that Alexandrov has mastered his instrument in a gracious and consummate way he has proved to be a talented teacher.
Notamag.Com

- He belongs to a type of people who, on achieving a considerable degree of artistry, doesn't quit everyday routine self-cultivation, 6-7-hour work.
Dmitry plays everything - salsa, swing, post-bop.
He's really competent and wise at playing traditional jazz and mainstream, so stylistically adequate that those of world jazz stars who played jams with Dmitry would always look back in surprise when he would begin his exquisite, passionate, sophisticated solos.
UAjazz.Com

- 50 minutes of pure, classical jazz – that is the only way to describe the new album "SkhidSideMen" by the jazz band SkhidSide [Dmitry plays with]. This band is one of the most outstanding jazz bands in Ukraine with a well thought out and individual sound. Jazz aficionados and critics consider it to be the standard of quality in Ukrainian show business.
The album demonstrates a great level of skills of the members of the band – Volodymyr Shabaltas (guitar), Illya Yeresko (piano), Oleksandr Lebedenko (drums), Valentyn Korniyenko (double-bass) and Dmytro Aleksandrov, tenor saxophonist and author of all of the compositions on the album.
SkhidSide was formed 10 years ago in Kharkiv. In those years the musicians mastered a whole variety of jazz trends – everything from jazz classics, jazz variations on an avant-garde theme hip-hop, Latino music and rock. SkhidSide is a personification of the most unpredictable artistic workshop. Everything starting with quartet version of Carl Orff’s oratorio Carmina Burana and finishing with radical avant-garde may be heard in the performances of piano player Illya Yeresko and double-bass guitarist Valentyn Korniyenko. Aleksandrov, who is devoted to classic jazz told KW that he recently played two shows with the famous New York pianist Mark Soskin, after which he played salsa within the framework of the project Kiev Salsa Kings.
By the way, in 2005 the band performed with a famous American jazz musician Randy Brecker – who is one of the most famous trumpeters in the U.S.
SkhidSide presented a perfect hard acid-funk program at this year’s popular jazz festival Jazz Koktebel in Crimea. It is worth mentioning that music critics call this program much more impressive than the high-quality, yet predictable performance of DePhazz, who were special guests at the festival.

Weekly.Com.Ua

information, photos from official site of Dmitry "Bobeen" Alexandrov: http://bobeen.com/

Albums:

Tanok Na Maydani Kongo, Skhid-Side. Jazzy. Live.


...the songs, which are well-known to us, are performed in a jazz manner, and people say that Skhid-Side ("East-Side") is in fact one of the best jazz bands of Ukraine... Especially because in this particular case it is not only jazz, but also TNMKongo - this mixture turns out to be strikingly successful...
Domestic price: 306.60UAH, International price: $21.90USD

Skhid-Side. Brand New.


...they say that it is exactly the album "Brand New" of exactly “East-Side” that is the best jazz music album of 2005 in Ukraine. Everybody will decide by himself how much it corresponds to the reality.
Domestic price: 460.60UAH, International price: $32.90USD

Skhid-Side. SkhidSideMen. /digi-pack/


It is musicians of the group that said about their "SkhidSideMen" album that the world had seen pure jazz. I won't argue – as personally I had exactly the same feeling about this music. The feeling of pure, fair, simple in its wisdom – fire...
Domestic price: 250.60UAH, International price: $17.90USD

Songs:

InterJazz. Live Recording from Ukraine. Volume 2.


...when a concert comes to an end, music does not disappear, its vibrations just pass to other frequencies, into other forms. And each of those who have heard it – and among the audience there are a lot of musicians – becomes its follower and continuer.
Domestic price: 250.60UAH, International price: $17.90USD

Yelena Popova. Voices From My Soul. /digi-pack/


Yelena Popova strikes with universality, it is difficult to define where she succeeds better – in energetic "hits" or in lyric, delicate ballads. Here she sounds with a bright flash, promises an explosion – and does not cheat, grants powerful emotional splashes. And in a minute – softly, almost in whisper lulls in cozy intonations, causes quiet tremor with her ability to breathe transparently in thick autumn color...
Domestic price: 250.60UAH, International price: $17.90USD

Alexey Kogan. ..Just 50.


...one of the most interesting jazz compilations released in Ukraine. Here, it is just impossible to expressly favor any compositions forgetting about the rest: too expressive, interesting, deep, and the main thing – diversified pieces sound on the disc. In the end, one could just look at the names, listen to the fragment...
Domestic price: 250.60UAH, International price: $17.90USD