Eine Frau
As of 17th April Jasmin Tabatabai is fixed as the winner of the ECHO Jazz in the category "Singer of the Year national". Congratulations to Jasmine. We are very proud to welcome another awardee of this great price after Céline Rudolph (singer of the year nationally - 2010) to Jazztage Dresden.
As a jazz singer Jasmin Tabatabai brings on stage German classic in jazz arrangements who develop an extraordinary charisma, like "Why should a woman have an affair?" from the musical comedy "A woman who knows what she wants," written by the Austrian operetta composer Oscar Straus. In the live line-up in the jazz quintet, these songs sound more purist than in the opulent orchestral arrangements of the new CD "A Woman".
Dispensing the wide range of tones enhances the contrast, sharpen the focus on the essentials and draws attention to the nuances of mood between the bright and dark moments of life: "Two strange eyes, a quick glance, / the brows, the pupils, the eyelids - / What was that? Perhaps your happiness ... / over, blown away, never again. " These verses from the poem "Eyes in the big-city" by Kurt Tucholsky can Tabatabai keep in the balance between singing and speaking.
In the CD booklet the lyricists of each of the songs are named first, then the composers. And they also seem to come first to Tabatabai. The music is in service of the texts in order to bring into effect the nuances between the lines, and occasionally even a little ambiguity. Sometimes Tabatabai even changes the meaning of a song, which saves her version from the comparison to the great models. In that fashion the sound of Hollaender’s "I do not know who I belong to" does not sound self-deprecating frivolous like Marlene Dietrich or Hildegard Knef anymore, but in its loneliness only abysmally sad.