CABARET VILLE
MAGAZINE. P286. CONT'D FROM
P285
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.
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