Kim's debut CD Shades of Love  On Kim’s outstanding debut solo CD Shades of Love, Kim puts her own unique spin on a dozen beloved jazz classics, and Here and Now, a haunting Kim Kaskiw original. Her talents as both an arranger and singer make her CD an artistic triumph. Like the great vocalists of the 1940s, Kim has a way with expressively telling a story. She is as comfortably playfully scatting alongside the great Guido Basso, as delivering ballads with incredible sensitivity and meaning. Kim’s stellar tone, extensive vocal range her hornlike phrasing spring from her background as a professional tuba player (not a typo). Her voice is as lush and large as her horn, which is featured on Ain’t Misbehavin’. On her CD, Kim has surrounded herself with exceptional musicians, including Juno Award winner Guido Basso on flugelhorn and trumpet, John MacMurchy on saxophone and clarinet, J.P. Allain on piano, Norm Glaude on bass, Don Johnson on drums and percussion, and Doriann Forrester on flute. Shades of Love has received radio airplay across Canada.  Buy Shades of Love today! $20 for CD (Taxes & Shipping Included) Please etransfer $20 to Kim at kimk11@rogers.com. Then email kimk11@rogers.com, requesting the CD, and supplying your mailing address. Thank you! .		Click on red titles to hear song clips: The Days of Wine and Roses But Beautiful You'd be So Nice to Come Home To Here and Now Old Time Melody Someone to Watch Over Me Always/Siempre To Be My Love That Old Black Magic Autumn Leaves You Don't Know What Love Is One Note Samba Ain't Misbehavin'
Ottawa Citizen Review Shades of Love By Peter Hum  Ottawa singer Kim Kaskiw makes her tightly arranged recording debut with Shades of Love, a disc filled with bop, ballads and several originals. Gatineau piano strongman J.P. Allain has crafted a mix of straightforward settings for Kaskiw's clear mezzo-soprano so that she takes off sassily on You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To, and projects tenderness on the ballads Always and Here and Now. Allain's fleet fingers have been under-recorded during his lengthy career. When he and Toronto hornman Guido Basso are front and centre, Kaskiw's disc hits bop heights. The best songs are concise successes marked by Kaskiw's assured delivery. And it ain't over until she plays her tuba on the disc's final track, Ain't Misbehavin'.   Ottawa Sun Review Subtle Shades of Beauty - Artist works through pain to produce music filled with joys of life and love  By Allan Wigney  Kim Kaskiw mischievously dedicates the version of Fats Waller's Ain't Misbehavin' that closes her CD Shades of Love to her "first love." And fittingly, she is joined on the jaunty rendition by that same love: Her tuba. Yet, for all the playfulness found on Shades of Love - notably in upbeat renditions of standards such as You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To and Jobim's One Note Samba - she admits that the real Kim Kaskiw is to be found beneath the achingly beautiful, poignant shades of melancholy that drive her lone original contribution, Here and Now.   The song, inspired by a close friend who lost a battle with cancer at age 44, speaks to the fleeting joys of life and love, and pleads for more time even as it accepts the futility of such demands.   It's hardly the stuff of a party anthem. And its mood is confidently offset by the carefree scatting that dots several of the album's tracks. Yet, Here and Now evokes the essence of soul music, in a jazz context.    "This is me with my heart on my sleeve, which is kind of how I live my life," Kaskiw says of such tender moments.   "There are many times when I'd finish a recording session and curl up into a ball and cry my eyes out. It's been a hard few years for me in my personal life (she also lost her mother during this time), but this experience has been positive. As positive as grief can be."   That's positive of course as in cathartic. And with Kaskiw's emotive vocals backed by some of Canada's finest jazz musicians, Shades of Love is anything but a downer. Nor should one expect Friday's CD release show to be anything less than a celebration.   The pain passes, but the beauty remains.