All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues. Mose Allison More Quotes by Mose Allison More Quotes From Mose Allison As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality. Mose Allison swings essentials personality The jazz boom was goin' on then so there was a lot happenin' in New York at that time. Mose Allison jazz new-york My main influences have always been the classic jazz players who sang, like Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole and Jack Teagarden. Mose Allison jazz player kings I've been able to do pretty well. I don't work as many consecutive nights as I used to, but I'm still working over 100 nights a year, so that's good for me. Mose Allison able night years The thing of playin' and singin' never bothered me. Mose Allison bothered I'm playin' the music I like. Mose Allison So I'm in my 51st year of playin' mostly nightclubs. I do some concerts. Mose Allison nightclubs concerts years [The producer told me:] "We can try one more record, and we'll see how that one does." Those records never did anything. My music never got mentioned. My color got mentioned. Mose Allison color doe trying I'm always storing away phrases and ideas and things that I think might turn into songs. Mose Allison song ideas thinking I sang and wrote songs when I was 12 years old. Mose Allison song years The idea was I'd never amount to anything in music, The theme there was that I was talented, but I wouldn't work hard enough to do anything with it. Mose Allison music hard-work ideas I was taking chemical engineering. But I went into the army after that. When I came out of the army, I was a different person. I met a lot of good jazz players in the army. Mose Allison engineering army player A young man ain't nothin' in the world these days Mose Allison these-days men world I just try to do as good job with the material as I can and play some jazz as well, some improvised music, and do that every night. Just see where it goes. Mose Allison play jobs night And Lennie Tristano I like a lot, I still like him. Mose Allison lennie stills I never thought I was playing black music. I was just playing music, the stuff I liked. I sang blues at parties and things when I was a kid. Mose Allison black party kids I do some concerts. At the moment, I'm being helped a lot by a gig I play in London, which is Pizza Express. Mose Allison gigs london play I do very few standards. Hardly any. Other people's tunes that I do are usually obscure tunes, for the most part, although I do a couple of Duke Ellington tunes that are well known. Mose Allison couple tunes people I finally decided if I was going to make a living, I was gonna have to come to New York. Mose Allison decided money new-york I don't remember any impression [from blues].The blues was just everywhere in the Mississippi Delta. It was mostly black sharecroppers living there, and there was a lot of blues around. Sometimes the guys would sing the blues in the fields, working. Mose Allison mississippi-delta black guy
