|
Mose Allison
Mose Allison is one of the great American songwriters. By his own
estimate, he’s written over 150 songs, several of which have been
covered by such pop artists as Bonnie Raitt, Van Morrison, Tracy
Nelson, the Who, the Yardbirds, Elvis Costello and Merlin Factor. And
while wide-scale attention has eluded the 73-year-old jazz
pianist/singer, Allison continues to perform 125 gigs a year, including
two annual three-week stints at The Pizza Express in London—which is
where he and his trio of bassist Roy Babbington and drummer Mark Taylor
were captured live for The Mose Chronicles: Live in London, Volume 1.
Recorded in January 2000, the album is produced by longtime associate
Ben Sidran who has not only piloted all of Allison’s Blue Note
recordings but also paid tribute to him with Morrison and Georgie Fame
on the 1996 CD "Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison".
The Mississippi-born Allison celebrated his 50th anniversary of
performing last year. His first gig was playing six nights a week at a
club in Lake Charles, Louisiana in 1950. Influenced by a range of jazz
musicians including Nat Cole, Bud Powell, John Lewis and Al Haig,
Allison moved to New York in 1956 and found work in the bands of such
jazz artists as Stan Getz, Zoot Sims and Gerry Mulligan before
launching his own trio in the late '50s. With swinging piano lines
reminiscent of Lester Young’s saxophone style and down-home lyrics
teeming with irony and wisdom, Allison recorded his
cabaret-from-the-backwoods brand of folky jazz for several major labels.
Regarding his lyrics, Allison says, "People call me a cynic, but really
my songs are almost always jokes. The idea of the ironic couplet
appeals to me. That’s from my childhood in Mississippi, where I also
learned the value of exaggeration and understatement. People try to
take my songs too literally when all I’m doing is playing around with
implied satirical notions."
Given his huge repertoire of songs, Allison says that these days he
only plays live those tunes that still have relevance. "I write all my
songs with the intention of lasting. But some are no longer pertinent
to me, such as my cottonsack songs that were inspired by growing up in
the rural South. I've been told that my other songs are really holding
up. I hope they’re right.”
|
