CABARET VILLE MAGAZINE.

REVISITING CABARET AND JAZZ GREATS

Wesla Whitfield, The American Signature Chanteuse                By Maximillien de Lafayette

"Ms. Whitfield has evolved from a conventional jazz-influenced pop singer into a stylist whose distinctive vocal quirks serve expressive ends. At Wednesday night's show, she sustained an ideal balance between playful intimacy and raw feeling." -- The New York Times

Legends are born, not made. Stars are made, not created. And the world of music glitters and shines brighter when a legend in the making reaches the throne of stardom. This is why we call those who shine in showbiz and world of entertainment STARS. It takes more than hard work, talent, perseverance and luck to make it big time in the the world of entertainment and showbiz. Success requires originality, unsurpassed  creativity, guts, new visions, innovative delivery, persona, stage presence, truthful inner feelings, warm rapport with the audience, taste and above all "uniqueness". And Wesla, the legend and the star monopolized all those virtues. Creative, truthful, captivating, engaging, warm and splendidly blessed with an intelligent and vibrant voice, Wesla secured her place of distinction in the universe of music.

The San Francisco Chronicle's Joe Brown   wrote:" Every great city deserves a signature chanteuse, and San Francisco is fortunate to have Whitfield as its resident voice...A cabaret evening spent with Whitfield reclaims the tarnished phrase "adult entertainment..." And he adds this: "This is smart, sophisticated fun for grown-ups who appreciate the finer things, who get it..." Jeff Rubio from the Orange County Register wrote: "This Singer's Singer Captures the Gold...Fans of the Great American Songbook, that collection of musical standards drawn mainly from the Golden Age of Broadway, should give real thought to heading to Founders Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center through Saturday. The reason is Wesla Whitfield, surely one of the best interpreters of that genre on the planet."

Photo: Wesla with Opera Star Beverly Sills.

Richard Dyer from the Boston Globe wrote: "Today there is no one better at what she does, which is to sing songs with a piano and bass in a small, dark room to people who love to listen to them."  The Los Angeles Times'  Don Heckman wrote:" It's a rare moment when all the elements of a performance--the words, the music and the interpretation--come together in perfect balance. But that's exactly what happened Tuesday night when singer Wesla Whitfield opened a 10-night run at the Cinegrill in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.

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Wesla Whitfield's artistic  longevity  reached audiences and people of all walks of life

Photo: Wesla Whitfield with First Lady Hillary Clinton at The White House.

Whitfield has long been a favorite with cabaret audiences, and the imaginative, often swinging musical settings provided by her pianist/musical director and husband, Mike Greensill, have placed her in an attractive jazz context as well...What they are doing with Rodgers and Hart is sheer magic, a definitive illustration of how to realize the art music qualities in popular song...Working in combination as a trio--voice, piano and bass--Whitfield, Greensill and Moore were brilliant, an incomparable blending of musical intelligence and dramatic sophistication."  Terry Teachout from the New York Daily News wrote: "Light up the skyrockets and put out more flags: Wesla Whitfield's back in town. The best cabaret singer in the world has set up shop at the Kaufman Theater with a one-woman show called "Life Upon the Wicked Stage." There's not much to it — she sings 20 songs and chats about the ups and downs of her career — but the talk is droll, the songs are wonderful and the singing is so good that you'll hug yourself with delight."

Whitfield, the Phenomenon.

Photo: Wesla and husband Mike in the Blue Room at the White House after performing for Hillary Clinton and all the Senators Spouses.

Why is she so unique? What so special about her style and talent?

Every talented singer has to a certain extent, developed a very personal "song interpretation style" and a particular vocal virtuosity delivery. And the dimension of  creative delivery varies from one artist to another, depending on the nature of selected repertoire and the personality of the singer. In that sense, the nature, the taste and the artistic capabilities determine and shape the artist's stage presence. A certain conformity is required from performers who sing the songs of the golden era of Hollywood and Broadway. Nevertheless, many entertainers and singers took immense liberty in interpreting  songs according to their state of mind, personal feelings and life experiences and or  for divergent and convergent reasons. Some of those reasons are of a purely musical nature, and some others come to life in virtue of artistic and  vocal necessities. Other performers extended their artistic singularity and freedom to meeting the taste, the needs and music style preference (s) of their audience. Probably, this is why some very clever artists easily and gracefully transcended time and space and never fell pray to fashion, moda, trendy appeal and the changes of time and styles in the music business. Artists like Sinatra and Bennett knew this secret, thus, they were able to prolong their careers for so many years, at a time, when so many equally talented performers faded away. And this is how Wesla Whitfield's artistic  longevity  reached audiences and people of all walks of like who either never witnessed that vanished golden era, or were never brought up to appreciate it. Thanks to Wesla's multi-dimensional and ever evolving talent, she was able to transcend dogmatic rules and traditional performances pre-requites, and reach for older, old, young and younger audiences by incorporating in her repertoire the music of yesteryears nourished with a modern flair and  a tempo-ambiance, today's audience tend to prefer. In addition, Wesla made her own rules and enlarged the perimeter of performance excellence by sculpting  an almost perfect sense of phrasing which magically and very tenderly reached the hearts and souls of multi-varied and demanding audiences. She brought to the traditional world of cabaret music, a very intimate, warm, pensive and personal musical and vocal interpretation which defied conventionalism. This delightful defying and charmingly innovative creativity is illustrated in the way she looks at her audience, and in an eloquent silence pauses for a moment or two, gazes into your soul, flirt with your thoughts, pauses briefly for another uninvited seconds when you don't expect her to do so, and with a soft elan, she recaptures the lyrics with a gentle explosion of lyrical finesse, intimate musical tenderness, and surrounding you with an unusual  "feeling of hearing those old songs" for the first time. And that is her alarming magic! In other words, she captures the nostalgic moments of an era you learned about but never lived it, yet, unconsciously you revisit those delightful passages of time, exactly  the way you want to feel them, sense them, metamorphose with them , grow with them and takes them home with you. This is how exactly a brilliant and clever singer vanquishes and overcomes the changes of time. Wesla mastered that secret and throw it on stage in splashes of remembrance, nostalgia, romanticism and living reality.

CABARET VILLE MAGAZINE.

THE WARM MAGIC OF WESLA WHITFIELD  

France brought to the world remarkable singers who set standards of excellence in cabaret singing. Artists like Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf, Jean Sablon, Juliette Greco and Barbara.  They attained immortality though their acts and performances in Parisian cabaret, boites, intellectual cafes and "Olympia" style music-halls. Although, they had different personalities, backgrounds, styles and lifestyles, one common denominator tied them together and immortalized their names. It was not the "crystal clear voice", the "power of their theatrical projection" or their presence on stage but two things: A- The intimate and direct rapport with the audience. B-Rejuvenating  old songs and reviving them as "songs of the moment", the very dear moments to your very dear life and emotions as if they were  new songs which just escaped from under the fingers of who wrote them and the lips of who sang them for the very first time. And this is exactly what Wesla does, each time she sings an old ballad. Past, present and future are one destination in every song Wesla sings on stage. The direct rapport with the audience created the mesmerizing and vivacious stage presence of those legends. Wesla mastered this technique, or this sublime art, should I say. And she did it through a conversional style. Wesla does not sing. She communicates with you and converse with you...she makes you think and feel...she pauses for you...she waits for your reaction...she invites you to take part in her way of telling the story of a song. She sings her songs like a story...a story you follow closely and absorb with intimacy. And once, a singer in his or her songs, succeeds in conversing with the public, then, and only then, this truthful singer captures, the attention, interest, mind, heart and soul of the audience. This is exactly what great artists like Juliette Greco, Gabriella Ferri, Barbara Cooke, Jacques Brel and Wesla Whitfield did! Grosso modo, Wesla Whitfield is an American national treasure, a world-class artist,  the best of the best in the business, an immortal!

Photo: Helen Mirren, Mike & Wesla at The London Palladium.

SOME REVIEWS:

"For Whitfield, it's always the words, delivered as if she's just chosen them herself. Is she the best singer -- jazz or whatever-around today? No disagreement here." -- Village Voice

"A lovely instrument, a sure technique, a novel way with phrase, a deep understanding of lyrics - these elements rarely come together in the work of a single vocalist.Where other singers choose histrionics, Whitfield consistently opts for understatement. Where lesses vocalist emphasize one register of their instrument over another, Whitfield produces lean, even, utterly controlled vocal lines top to bottom." -- Chicago Tribune

Whitfield is, in short, a singer so good that she doesn't have to shout, she doesn't have to overdramatize, and she doesn't have to be anything other than what she is -- a nonpareil musical artist." -- The Los Angeles Times

"...ability to stay true to the composer's intentions with unusual grace and empathy." -- The Washington Post. Wesla Whitfield's back in town: the best cabaret singer in the world. She knows how to point up every lewd nuance in a Cole Porter lyric. But she can also swing as hard as Nat Cole, and her way with a torch song is as devastatingly unsentimental as Frank Sinatra at his late-50s best." -- New York Daily News. "My idea of the best of all possible musical experiences might well be Wesla Whitfield...her use of dynamics, often with a dramatic, personal flair...convert virtually every one of her renditions into a distinctive, personalized classic." -- San Franscisco Examiner. "Wesla Whitfield renders song classics with such imagination that her interpretations can't be confused with anyone else's. Her technique is distinctive, too: she spins out the longest phrases in the business, sometimes saving intense surges for the very end, where others would be completely out of breath...Even modest shadings of color or mood pack a wallop." -- The New Yorker.

Her Official Biography

"This wonderful singer thrills me when I hear her." Tony Bennett.

Wesla Whitfield is a remarkable singer, with a deep love for that rich storehouse of musical treasures often identified as The Great America Popular Songbook. Wesla has been developing her skills and learning her demanding craft for a number of years -by her own estimate, It’s been ever since she "knew at age two-and-a-half that I would grow up to be a singer." Her sound and approach would seem to place her somewhere in the intriguing area that borders on both jazz and that aspect of pop music which draws its material largely from the great standards and neglected gems of such as Cole Porter and Irving Berlin and Rodgers and Hart. Wesla Whitfield was born in Santa Maria, California. The youngest of three girls, she experienced routine childhood music training (piano lessons at age 7, sang in church, studied voice - "classical, of course" - at about age 14). She did discover her mother’s extensive sheet music collection at an early age, "and used it to sight-read." Serious radio and record listening provided some important influences including Rosemary Clooney, the Hi-Los, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine and Dean Martin. Among her earliest professional experiences was a mid-70s stint with the San Francisco Opera as a salaried chorister. Wesla, with her husband / pianist / arranger, Mike Greensill performs annually at the Hollywood/Roosevelt Cinegrill, The Algonquin Hotel’s Oak Room and Arci’s Place in New York, at Blues Alley in Washington DC, Jazz Alley in Seattle, at the world renowned Pizza on the Park in London and for two months each winter in San Francisco at the York Hotel Plush Room as well as numerous concert venues throughout the States and Europe. She has opened at Michigan’s Meadowbrook, New Jersey’s Garden State Art Center and Flint Center in Cupertino for such notables as George Burns, Michael Feinstein and Frankie Laine. Solo symphonic appearances include two concerts with the San Francisco Symphony as well as San Jose, Sacramento, Omaha, Stockton, Napa, Auburn, Concord Pavilion, Santa Rosa and California Symphonies. Wesla has appeared twice on Garrison Keillor’s national show, "Prairie Home Companion", singing with the legendary trumpeter, Joe Wilder, on ‘Weekend Edition’ with Susan Stamberg, ‘On Fresh Air’ with Terry Gross, and on All Things Considered’ with Robert Siegel.

Wesla, who sang "When You Wish Upon A Star" at the grand opening of the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City, California pictured with Kirk and his wife Anne Douglas.

In other radio appearances, Wesla and Mike were recent guests on the highly revered Marian McPartland PBS ‘Piano Jazz’ series. In TV venues, the pair have been featured five times on the Charles Grodin show, performed on the Regis and Kathie Lee show, and were the subject of a feature story on America’s favorite TV show, ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ with Charles Osgood. In summer of ’95 Wesla and Michael appeared as part of the JVC Jazz Festival at Avery Fisher Hall in New York and also made their Carnegie Hall debut that same summer, participating in the Tribute to Frank Sinatra.Since then they have appeared in the ’96 Ella Fitzgerald, the ‘97 Nat Cole and the ‘98 Judy Garland tributes, also held at Carnegie Hall. In June of ‘96 they were invited by Hillary Clinton to perform at the White House. In October ‘98,Wesla debuted her one-woman, autobiographical show at the Kaufman Theater on 42nd street in New York to massive, critical acclaim.  In March of ‘99,Whitfield and Greensill performed their Rodgers and Hart show at Blues Alley in Washington, DC, The Jazz Standard in New York and as invited members of the repertory company and the ongoing salute to American Popular Song at LincolnCenter. Taking their highly acclaimed show "I'm In the Mood For Love", songs of Jimmy McHugh to Arci’s Place on Park Avenue South for a month’s run in New York in January of 2001, on to the Hollywood Roosevelt and then to the recording studio, for their thirteenth recording, titled "Let's Get Lost", released in Fall of 2000. In spring of 2001, Mike and Wesla were invited to San Francisco’s beloved Geary Theater for an all-new show, "Hooray For Hollywood" as part of this venue’s cabaret series including Betty Buckley and Barbara Cook. An exciting debut at the St.Louis MUNY Theater in the summer of 2001 featured Miss Whitfield in an all Gershwin revue with choreography by Thommie Walsh, direction by Paul Blake and the orchestral arrangements of Mike Greensill as well as an ensemble cast including Harvey Evans, Pamela Isaacs and Karen Morrow. Their fourteenth recording, "Best Thing For You Would Be Me" featuring the songs of Irving Berlin was released in 2002. And a totally new concept album titled, "September Songs"  featuring songs by Harry Warren, Alec Wilder and Kurt Weill’ debuts their pairing with such greats as Tommy Flanagan and the Kronos Quartet. This latest venture, on the HighNote Records label is the fifteenth recording from Whitfield and Greensill and was released in May 2003.