LingoLand is a retrospective in revue form of Kenward Elmslie, who for five decades in New York has been a poet, librettist for musicals and operas, playwright, composer and visual artist. All but the last of these appear on this CD, presented by Elmslie and five characterful fellow performers accompanied by a small, versatile and beautifully precise musical ensemble.

The revue does not entirely keep to the title-song’s promise of a “cheeky freaky jamboree”, but stylish, varied and enjoyable it is. Predictably, the numbers originally written for revue register most easily, including the male identity send-up “Take me away, Roy Rogers” and “Brazil” (no, not that one). Elmslie’s cult collaboration with composer Claibe Richardson, the musical The Grass Harp, is well represented and supports the reputation this lesser-known score has developed. Musical collaborators sometimes seem more professional than inspired, although the brief extracts from Miss Julie, Elmslie’s opera with composer Ned Rorem, stand out.

Spoken text includes play extracts, reminiscences and poems. Some are flights of verbal imagination (a collision of Busby Berkeley and Andy Warhol leading to “Girl machine”), others are examples of witty bravura (“Touche’s salon”, for his “mentor/significant other” John Latouche). Juxtapositions of text and music work well: the poem “Bare bones III” brings an added poignancy to its following song “Who’ll prop me up in the rain”. Elmslie’s freedom to ignore boundaries of genre and form is healthy, and makes this revue a journey down a fascinating verbal tributary rather than an over-familiar Broadway river.