Wesla Whitfield’s show is a Master Class in song interpretation.  At the Metropolitan Room, Whitfield’s new show with the creative Mike Greensill Trio, forms a sensitive arc, opening with DeSylva/Henderson/Brown’s “The Best Things in Life Are Free.”  With warm optimism, she revels in the wonderful miracles – the moon, stars, flowers and love – that belong to everyone.  It is such a joyful song and, like all the tunes she chooses with unfailing taste and insight, Whitfield brings each word to life as if demanding, how can we not be in awe with all the riches around us?

The arc closes with a Joe Raposo song, “Bein’ Green,” introduced by Kermit the Frog.  A song oddly both simple and complex, it addresses everyone who feels he is different.  Whitfield’s soft, gentle rendering gathers the listener in with reminders of racial and gender discrimination, horrors of bullying and its tragic results, the loneliness when someone feels unloved, tormented people who live behind masks.  It ends:

“It could make you wonder why, but why wonder, why wonder?
I am green and it'll do fine,
it's beautiful
And I think it's what I want to be.”

Between the lighthearted opener and the heartfelt closer are a fistful of great songs, many as cheery as the pairing of Lionel Bart’s “Who Will Buy?” with the exuberance of “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” (Rodgers and Hammerstein).  Talking about her early years in rural California, she delivers two country songs, quipping that both were linked to different Patsys.  The first is a Patsy Cline hit, the rolling rhythm of “Walking After Midnight” (Alan Block and Don Hecht) followed by “I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart” (Patsy Montana).

And there are the “bummer songs.” as Whitfield calls them.  In Noël Coward’s “Mad About the Boy,” she elicits conflicted dreaminess with frustration in the line, “…Will it ever cloy/This odd diversity of misery and joy?” putting particular stress on, “misery” and “joy.”

This is a show beautifully crafted, with a clear point of view and songs that perfectly fit the vision.  Wesla Whitfield’s long, clean lines and clarity of tone ring with beauty and musicianship.  After Mike Greensill vocal solos with“Until the Real Thing Comes Along,” they join in a duet of “Let’s Get Away from It All,” with Whitfield’s new lyrics tacked on, including lines like:

 ”I’d feel so pretty/In Calumet City…”

She reveals that the main reason for the show lies in the message of Alan and Marilyn Bergman/Michel Legrand’s “You Must Believe in Spring,” remembering,  “…and love.”  This song is followed by a Whitfield standby, the uptempo jazz tune by Nat Cole, “I’m an Errand Girl (Boy) for Rhythm.”

Underneath the witty and slyly charismatic Whitfield repertoire are the jazz underpinning, the swing, timing and shrewd phrasing that do not interfere with the melody. It is her husband, Mike Greensill, who takes the melody out into expressive territories, accompanied on bass by John Wiitala and on drums by Vince Laetano. Their opening of “Young and Foolish” deftly sets the tone for the show with rhythm and imagination.

Wesla and MiIke continue through June 12. All shows at 7 pm.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
June 1, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org