Allan Browne Quintet
The Drunken Boat
(Jazzhead)
Rating: ****
Melbourne drummer and bandleader Allan Browne has set his quintet a challenging, literature-based, musical task for their second album.
The work, composed by band members trumpeter Eugene Ball and guitarist Geoff Hughes, is an interpretation of 19th century French poet Rimbaud’s Le Bateau Ivre (The Drunken Boat).
In five suites the music portrays Rimbaud’s hallucinatory story of an unmanned, humanised European boat drifting down American rivers through storms and prehistoric images amidst disintegration and nostalgia, fuelled by a cargo of absinthe.
Finally the boat becomes a worthless waterlogged plank. This high quality music can be enjoyed without reference to Rimbaud, but it’s rewarding to listen to the interpretations of titles like Lost in The Furious Lashing of Tides; Dancing, Lighter Than a Cork; or My Water Drunk Carcass.
The compositions vary in style and atmosphere from post bop themes, to ballads and ambient effects, all driven by Browne’s impeccable drumming. There are impressive solos from Ball, Hughes, and altoist David Rex in this memorable collection.
This review first appeared in The Weekend Australian and is republished with permission of the author.
