In a music world that sometimes seems over-run with out-of-tune cabaret crooners, would-be jazz singers and commercially driven imitators, Whitfield emerges as the real thing, a vocalist who has something distinct and personal to say with virtually every tune she addresses. Though most of the material Whitfield sang at the Martin Theatre has been performed by cabaret and jazz artists for generations, she generally reinvented these works to suit her dramatic purposes.
   If anyone these days is singing a more rapturous account of Irving Berlin’s ‘I Got Lot In His Arms,’ the listening public has yet to hear about it. Whitfield took a slow and dreamy tempo, sometimes suspending time, as she lingered on a nearly whispered high note or brought a phrase to a particularly soaring climax. In so doing, she conveyed the message of Berlin’s lyric more effectively than words alone could.
   Whenever a singer takes on Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘I Have Dreamed,’ at least one listener cannot get Frank Sinatra’s epic version out of his head. But Whitfield’s account proved worthy in its own right, her radical reshaping of the tune-which she reconceived with unexpected pauses and remarkably subtle tonal shadings-worth remembering long after she reached its culminating note. Not that everything Whitfield sang represented a weighty artistic statement. She found whimsy in an uptempo version of ‘The Best Things For You,’ double-entendres in ‘Tea For Two,’ and a decidedly post-Marxian humor (as in Groucho) in ‘Lydia the Tattooed Lady.’
  Deftly accompanied by bassist John Wiitala and pianist Mike Greensill, her husband, Whitfield reaffirmed the value of ‘Martinis at the Martin,’ and the fragile art of cabaret, which it celebrates.

Howard Reich - Tribune Arts Critic