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My Shining Hour, songs of Harold Arlen
Penning such well known tunes as 'It's Only A Paper Moon', 'Stormy Weather' and the entire score of 'Wizard Of Oz', Harold Arlen, in collaboration with many great lyricists has found a spot in a worldwide musical memory.
Not being limited by the more traditional forms of popular song, Arlen's music is both unique and satisfying in its originality. My Shining Hour is a seventy-five minute celebration of these fine songs and offers a biographical glimpse of this lifelong musician and his varied lyrical partnerships. These are songs worth savoring in their insightful reflection of life and living. Come hear them in a fresh, new presentation.
Reviews and Quotes
"This wonderful singer thrills me when I hear her." Tony Bennett
"Ms. Whitfield combines ruthless insight, intense emotion and highly evolved jazz phrasing into a musical evening that goes beyond mere entertainment to flirt with profundity."
New York Times
"Wesla Whitfield has brought back a lost art by making old songs sound new every time she sings them. Perched on stools in rooms still dark but no longer smoky, Whitfield performs songs as conversations with her husband, arranger-pianist Mike Greensill; with the other musicians; with the composers and lyricists; with the emotion as a leaf in the wind, and sweet as sap. Whitfield sings it like it is; she has known despair
and hope, and she's come out a cockeyed optimist. As she sings "When You Wish Upon A Star," you
believe your dreams will come true because she does, and hers did."
Boston Globe
"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
"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
"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
"Wesla Whitfield is an indoor landmark. Every great city deserves a signature chanteuse, and
San Francisco is fortunate to have Whitfield as its resident voice. Much like the city itself,
Whitfield keeps an amused and affectionate eye on the glories of the past, while living entirely
in the present."
San Francisco Chronicle
"One of the finest masters of popular singing, Whitfield should be scrutinized by anyone attempting to learn the subtleties of the vocal arts, and treasured by listeners who value beautiful music, beautifully done. Her voice is pure yet as malleable as a jazz horn, and she uses it with meticulous attention to detail. The result is superb jazz singing. 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
"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
"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
Whitfield is a singer who's got it all: clarion pitch, delicious tone, textbook enunciation,
priceless timing, quick wit, and a lot more."
Jazziz Magazine
Song Titles
Out of This World
Let's Fall In Love
My shining Hour
It's Only A Paper Moon
This Time the Dream's On Me
Happy As the Day is Long
Moanin' In the Mornin'
As Long As I Live
I Wonder What Became of Me
Ill Wind
Over The Rainbow
I Never Has Seen Snow
Ding, Dong, the Witch Is Dead
What's Good About Goodbye
Let's Take the Long Way Home
Someone At Last
One For My Baby
A Sleepin' Bee
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Wesla Whitfield
Wesla Whitfield inhabits that indeterminate zone where jazz and cabaret meet. Trained in classical music and opera, Whitfield has toiled for more tha...