E' ancora al fantasmagorico Cuff Clout (Voiceprint, 2004) di Kate Westbrook che attinge la splendida serie settimanale del WestbrookJazz Moving Picture Show, con due dei momenti clou dello spettacolo rappresentati oggi da Toad's Washerwoman e One Cezanne Apple la prossima settimana.
Dell'album scrisse all'epoca Frank-John Hadley per Downbeat: "British vocalist Kate Westbrook has a gift for music theater. Updating early 20th-century English music hall on Cuff Clout, Westbrook sets her witty and eccentric texts to bold and fascinating genre-crossing music composed by eight collaborators, including her husband Mike Westbrook, Chris Biscoe, Lindsay Cooper and Barbara Thompson. Maintaining a wicked edginess in her rich, limber voice, she skewers the memory of the millionaire inventor of barbed wire on "Glidden" and plumbs a gloomy, stately mood on the striking piano-and-voice ballad "My Lazy Goodheart," where her emotional timbre suggests blood ties to Marianne Faithfull. John Winfield is one hell of a lead singer, too, playing the part of a jailbird's confederate to the hilt in "Toad's Washerwoman" and wrenching cryptic meaning out of the words to "The Riddle." Together, Westbrook and Winfield embark on a cosmic journey singing the terrifically daft "Oceans, Straits, Currents & Seas" - think Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Lord Byron and private eye John Shaft sharing a pickle jar full of LSD. Kate's Skirmishers band performs with a deft touch, whether sounding like an old strip joint combo on "Toad's Washerwoman" or enshrouding "One Cezanne Apple" with a Third Stream funereal air. Getting comfortable with Westbrook's "neoteric music hall" may take some work but it's worth it."
https://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/katewestbrook
https://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/pictureshow
https://www.westbrookjazz.co.uk/katewestbrook/cuffclout
