I just got back from Wesla Whitfield‘s last set at the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel (right in time to reset my clocks), and I simply had to sit
down and tell you how wonderful it was. The room was full of singers, among them Julie Wilson and Mary Foster Conklin, and Whitfield was well aware of it, for her singing was everything that cabaret ought to be and sometimes is: sly and playful, daring and free, musically impeccable, devastatingly emotional. (I could–and should–say all the same things about her accompanists, Mike Greensill on piano and Sean Smith on bass, for they, too, were flying.)
The Oak Room and I have a history. I used to go there all the time to see my old friend Nancy LaMott, and when she died, eight Decembers ago (how can so much time have passed?), I found it all but impossible to go back. It took a long time before I started to feel even halfway at ease in the Algonquin, and even then my memories often made me too melancholy to appreciate whatever I happened to be hearing, no matter how good it was.
Of course Nancy was on my mind last night, for Wesla Whitfield was the only cabaret singer she admitted to admiring, and she would have really, really loved the late show from which I just returned. The Oak Room hasn’t seen much of Whitfield in recent years, but after an evening like that, I can’t imagine they won’t bring her back for a nice long run. A one-night stand is about thirty nights too few.
I forgot to mention in my recent posting
about Whitfield that she has a new CD out, September Songs. Don’t wait for Christmas. Don’t even wait for Monday. Click on the link and order it now.