Admittedly, this reviewer is a Wesla Whitfield fan. But even the most jaded Manhattanites will admit, if pressured, that some of cabaret’s most engaging performers are based on the West Coast, and that among that select group there are but a precious few as captivating as Wesla Whitfield. At The Metropolitan Room, New York’s newest cabaret hot spot, Whitfield and accompanist/arranger Mike Greensill kept the room alternating between hushed admiration and occasionally boisterous approval. The show opened with Greensill’s and bassist John Wiitala’s instrumental prelude, displaying the keen jazz vibes that would permeate arrangements of the mostly standards that would follow.

Whitfield is a fancier of songs’ verses, treating the audience to them and with brief but relevant patter. The encore number clearly was a personal favorite, as she ended her show with an appropriately ethereal, beautifully sung Lost in the Stars.