1. This Can't Be Love
2. Love Is Here To Stay
3. East Of The Sun
4. Pure Imagination
5. For All We Know
6. Get Out Of Town
7. Once In A While
8. The Gentleman Is A Dope
9. Alfie
10 I'm Glad There Is You
11. Do I Hear A Waltz
12. I've Heard That Song Before
13. Whistling Away The Dark
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Wesla Whitfield – Vocals
Mike Greensill – Piano
Gary Foster – Alto sax, tenor sax, clarinet,
bass clarinet, flute, alto flute
John Wiitala - Bass
Vince Lateano - Drums.
Bill Klingelhoffer, Alicia Telford, Keith Green,
Eric Achen – French horns (tracks 1, 2, 4, 5,
8, 9, 11, 12)
In
a world where many female vocalists sound
homogenised and indistinguishable, it’s refreshing
to hear a singer like Wesla Whitfield. I suspect
that her voice is something you will either
love or hate, since it is so idiosyncratic.
She
has at least two disconcerting habits: holding
onto a note so long that you feel it may never
end, and suddenly bursting out forcibly like
an operatic diva (her shout of "Alfie!"
in track 9 sets you back on your heels). These
tendencies probably stem from her classical
training but they are part of a fine vocal
technique, which is effectively brought to
bear in refreshing familiar jazz standards
like most of the songs on this album.
She
also likes singing songs in their entirety,
so that we can hear the verses of such numbers
as Love is Here to Stay and For
All We Know (though heaven knows why she
enunciates some words in the latter with a
childish lisp!). She even inserts bits of
John Lennon’s Imagine into the lovely
Bricusse/Newley song Pure Imagination
(from the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory).
Pianist
Mike Greensill (Wesla’s husband) writes some
enterprising arrangements, adding the unusual
sound of four French horns to eight tracks.
Savour the contrapuntal passage he inserts
behind the melody of This Can’t Be Love
and the witty snatches of waltz tunes he includes
in the accompaniment to Do I Hear a Waltz?
And his band is pretty good, particularly
multi-instrumentalist Gary Foster, whose alto-sax
on East of the Sun has the clarity
of Paul Desmond and whose tenor-sax on For
All We Know is gloriously Getzian.
Whitfield
is not an impeccable singer – her pitching
occasionally goes astray and she sometimes
swallows words – but she holds your attention
by the intelligence and singularity of her
performances.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
HighNote
HCD 7152
