Piedmont Piano Company is pleased to present
Wesla Whitfield - vocal, Mike Greensill - piano
"The Best Things In Life"

with Carla Kaufman - bass and cello

Sunday, January 8 at 4PM
at Piedmont Piano Company's new store located at
18th & San Pablo, Oakland (1728 San Pablo Ave.)

Wesla and Mike along with the wonderful Carla Kaufman on bass will mine the endless treasures of the
Great American Songbook. From Irving Berlin to Cole Porter, from Frank Loesser to Cy Coleman.
This concert also features songs from Wesla's latest CD "The Best Things in Life".

$20 - please call 510-547-8188 to reserve tickets with your credit card

Wesla Whitfield inhabits that indeterminate zone where jazz and cabaret meet. Trained in classical music and opera, Whitfield has toiled for more than three decades to become one of the most gifted performers breathing life into that exquisite body of Broadway tunes, movie songs and Hit Parade numbers known collectively as the Great American Songbook. In 2006 Wesla and Mike moved to St Helena in Napa Valley but still spends much of their time in New York and San Francisco, working such noted rooms as the Algonquin Oak Room, The Rrazz Room, The Metropolitan Room and Joe's Pub at New York's Public Theater, Wesla has also appeared in concert at NY Town Hall, Avery Fisher and Carnegie Hall. In 1996 Wesla had the honor to perform at the White House for Hillary Clinton.

With her deft sense of time and uncanny ability to connect with the emotional truth in a lyric, the jazz world has had no qualms about embracing her as one of its own.
Their latest CD, recorded in May of 2011 during their annual run at the Razz Room in San Francisco, is titled "Best Thing For You - Live from the Rrazz Room" and was released in October 2011.
Together Whitfield and Greensill conduct scheduled Master Classes at Notre Dame De Namur in Belmont and Napa Colleges in Napa Valley and throughout the country as well as teaching privately.

Whitfield and Greensill have garnered numerous national television, radio and written media credits including, All Things Considered, Fresh Air with Teri Gross, People Magazine, CBS Sunday Morning, New York Times Sunday Magazine, DownBeat Magazine profile and a feature in 'O' Magazine.

"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

After graduating in 1972 from Leeds College of Music in England, Mike Greensill toured Europe and the Far East and lived in Hong Kong for 4 years before finally settling into his adopted home, San Francisco, in 1977.

Well known in his role as musical director and husband to acclaimed vocalist Wesla Whitfield with whom he has recorded twenty albums, Mike is also resident piano player on Sedge Thomson's weekly Public Radio show to the world, "West Coast Live". Mike can also be caught playing jazz with his trio in many a Bay Area saloon and jazz club.

As an arranger Mike, in addition to his work with Wesla, has had the opportunity to write for big bands and symphony orchestras including the Boston Pops and the San Francisco Symphony.
Mike has also had the pleasure of accompaning such diverse talents as Rita Moreno, Margaret Whiting, Broadway stars Lillias White and Franc D'Ambrosio and such jazz singers as Madeline Eastman, Ann Hampton Callaway, Denise Perrier and Opie Bellas.

Mike is currently in the middle of writing his magnum opus "Art of the Accompanist" and exploring the taste delights of his new adopted home, St Helena in Napa Valley's "wine country".

"Greensill is an accompanist in the great tradition of Jimmy Rowles and Ellis Larkins. It’s worth twice the price of admission just to hear him!"
-Terry Teachout - NY Daily News