Westbrook, Kate - Cuff Clout (Mega Blowout Sale)
SKU
23-VP 310
Kate Westbrook voice (1,3,4,5,6,7,8,9)
John Winfield voice (1,2,3,5,6,7,8,9)
Stuart Brooks trumpet (1,9)
Chris Biscoe alto sax (1,6,9)
Tim Holmes sopranino/soprano sax (7)
Peter Whyman alto/soprano sax (2,6,7)
Barbara Thompson soprano sax (3,8)
Peter King alto sax (5)
Alan Barnes alto sax (5)
Andy Grappy tuba (1,2,8,9)
Laka Daisical piano/keyboards (1,6,9)
Errollyn Wallen piano (4)
John Alley piano (2,7)
Mike Carr hammond organ (5)
Billy Thompson violin (3,8)
Dudley Phillips electric bass (3)
Peter Lemer synthesiser (8)
Jon Hiseman drums (8)
Sebastian Rochford drums (1,6,9)
Nic France drums (3)
Steve Brown drums (5)
Neil Percy percussion (7)
“...this record is a triumph for Kate's multiple talents.”
– Duncan Heining, Jazzwise Aug 2004
“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 bandleader husband Mike Westbrook and other Anglo jazz worthies 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.
– Frank-John Hadley - Downbeat, October 2004
- LabelVoiceprint
- UPC604388315123