CABARET: STARS AND
LEGENDS
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!
Written by Maximillien de Lafayette______________________________________________________________________________
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
END