Mose Allison

Mose Allison was born in the Mississippi Delta on his grandfathers farm near the village of Tippo. At five he discovered he could play the piano by ear and began picking out blues and boogie tunes he heard on the local jukebox. In high school he listened to the music of Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Louis Jordan, and his prime inspiration, Nat Cole of the King Cole Trio. He played trumpet in the marching and dance bands and started writing his own songs.

After a year at the University of Mississippi, he went to the Army in l946, playing in the Army Band in Colorado Springs and performing with accomplished musicians from around the country in small groups at NCO and Officers clubs. Returning to Ole Miss he joined the dance band as arranger, piano and trumpet player, but shortly left to form his own trio, playing piano and singing in a style heavily influenced by Nat Cole, Louis Jordan and Erroll Garner. After a year on the road, Mose married, returned to college at Louisiana State University and graduated in 1952 with a BA in English and Philosophy.

He worked in nightclubs throughout the Southeast and West, blending the raw blues of his childhood with modern pianistic influences of John Lewis, Thelonius Monk and Al Haig. His vocal style was influenced by blues singers Percy Mayfield and Charles Brown. Arriving in New York in 1956, Mose received encouragement, work and a record date from Al Cohn. In 1957 he secured his own first recording contract with Prestige Records, recording Back Country Suite, a collection of pieces evoking the Mississippi Delta, released to unanimous critical acclaim. Mose went on to play and record with jazz greats Stan Getz, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims and Gerry Mulligan as well as with his own Mose Allison Trio.

Mose continued working with his own trio, writing and singing his own songs. His songs are a fusion of rustic blues and jazz, embellished with profound and often humorous lyrics. As a pianist, while admiring jazz masters Bud Powell and Lenny Tristano, he also learned from composers such as Bartok, Ives, Hindemith and Ruggles. The fusing of these diverse elements into a cohesive performance continues today. A biography, One Mans Blues: The Life and Music of Mose Allison, written by Patti Jones, was published in 1995 by Quartet Books Ltd. Of London.

Mose continues to write and perform all over the world. His songs have been covered by Van Morrison, John Mayall, The Who, The Clash, Eric Clapton, the Yardbirds, Elvis Costello and Bonnie Raitt to name a few. Van Morrison recorded a tribute album, Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison, on Verve Records, and rockers like Pete Townshend, Bonnie Raitt, Ray Davies and Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones have frequently cited Mose Allison as a major influence.

His most recent Grammy nomination was for one of his two newest recordings, Mose Chronicles, Live in London, Vol. I on Blue Note Records. Mose Chronicles, Vol II was just released last year. Also, British born Director Paul Barnays has produced a one hour documentary on Mose, entitled Mose Allison; Ever Since I Stole the Blues, for the BBC4 in the UK. Among recent releases are a dozen reissues on CD including Allison Wonderland and a double CD retrospective on Rhino, and High Jinks, a three CD package on Legacy. Blue Note has also re-released a collection of past recordings, Mose Allison, Jazz Profiles. His music has often been used in movies, and he can be seen performing in the recently released movie, The Score, starring Robert DeNiro and Marlon Brando.

Mose resides on Long Island with his wife Audre where they raised four children: Alissa, an attorney, John, a telecommunication specialist, Janine, a psychiatrist, and Amy Allison, also a successful and respected singer songwriter in New York with her own group.

As one writer recently said: Mose is now at the peak of his performing career. Although maybe this last statement is not quite true as he seems to continue to improve on perfection.

Mose John Allison Jr. was born in 1927 in Tippo, Mississippi, a cotton town in the Mississippi delta. By the time Mose was in grade school he was already composing boogie woogie tunes on the piano. His father, a piano stride player himself, encouraged the young Mose in his playing but also taught him the meaning of "work on the farm." Mose plowed cotton with a mule and said once that he is probably one of the few remaining living bluesman who can honestly make that claim. He grew up where "The blues was in the air." While still in his teens Mose was sitting in with R and B bands on Memphis's famed musical mecca Beale Street. One of those bands was led by another teenage bluesman, Beale Street Boy, better known as B. B. King. It was a full decade before SUN Records discovery of Elvis Presley. In the 1940's in the deep south it was not yet socially acceptable for races to mix in public places. When it comes to music Mose says, "I just followed my ears."

In 1956 Mose migrated to New York where the jazz scene was taking off. He staked out an artistic and musical niche that was both respected and unique. Today, many in the industry view Mose as a musician's musician, a singer's singer and a songwriter's songwriter. Mose is still playing over 150 dates a year and considers his 40 years on the road performing as "on the job training." In the states Mose has a loyal following but, it was in England during the 1960's where Mose got the attention of many soon to be British Invaders. The Yardbirds, The Who, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and others would soon be covering his songs. Someone said to Mose once, "You were a social critic before Dylan; you were satirical long before Newman; you were rude long before Jagger; why aren't you a big star?" Mose's answer to that was, "Just Lucky, I guess." Mose's popularity in the states has been on a slow and steady rise. As the man himself wrote, "If you live, your time will come". Perhaps Mose's time has finally come.

In a twenty month period covering 1994-5, a biography on Mose entitled, One Man's Blues, has been published in the UK, a studio CD on Blue Note was released entitled, The Earth Wants You, a live set from the seventies was released on indie CD entitled, Pure Mose, Rhino Records released a two CD anthology entitled, Allison Wonderland and finally a three CD boxed set from Sony, High Jinks! Trilogy. Certainly it is wonderful time to be a Mose fan.

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Mose Allison: American Legend Live in California

Read "American Legend Live in California" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
April 22, 2016

Che dire di questo live del 2006, quando il suo protagonista viaggiava verso gli ottanta (li avrebbe compiuti di lì a un anno, l'11 novembre 2007)? Poco e male, viene spontaneo affermare. Mose Allison ha fior di estimatori, per carità, che evidentemente sono riusciti a trovare nel suo canto sdolcinato e privo di qualunque tipo di pathos e del benché minimo afflato creativo e nel suo pianismo appena più decoroso (definiamolo funzionale) qualcosa che il vostro recensore non ha purtroppo ...

Album Review

Mose Allison: Mose Allison: American Legend in California

Read "Mose Allison: American Legend in California" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
November 6, 2015

Tippo, Mississippi is about as far from Charleston as it is Tutwiler, the two county seats of Tallahatchie County, located on the northeastern edge of the alluvial Delta plain, before the land turns to rolling hills. There lives in Tippo, an Allison family, who thirty years ago were patients of mine when I was practicing pharmacy while attending graduate school. That is Allison...as in, Mose Allison. I Mose Allison's mother and brother frequently during the 10 years I kicked around ...

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Interview

Mose Allison: Back in the (Studio) Saddle

by R.J. DeLuke
February 16, 2010

Mose Allison, the singer/songwriter blues/jazz man from the Mississippi Delta, has reached the age of 82. He's packed into that lifetime some 60 years in the music business and on the road. He's still playing more than 100 club and concert dates a year, from New York to California, across the pond in England and elsewhere.He's recorded steadily during those years, his albums all well received in the jazz community by critics and fans alike. But over the ...

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Profile

A Modest Proposal: Joe Henry's Letter-Writing Campaign Results in Mose Allison's First Record in 12 years

by Jeff Vrabel
January 15, 2010

Joe Henry's strategy for coaxing Mose Allison back to the studio for the first time in twelve years was simple enough: All he had to do was quietly and thoughtfully stalk the jazz icon for a year.

“He kept at it, and kept calling me and emailing and so forth," the 82-year-old Allison said of the courting process by Henry, who received two Grammy nominations this month for his production on Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi and Ramblin' Jack Elliott's ...

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Live Review

Mose Allison at Nighttown

by Matt Marshall
September 11, 2009

Nighttown Cleveland Heights, Ohio August 29, 2009

Mose Allison sings for survivors. He always has. He sings easy, buoyant blues in a lackadaisical style. His voice, while rubbed at the edges from more than 50 years on the road, is still crisp with vaudevillian nonchalance. He accompanies himself with confident, insistent piano vamps drawn as much from Wagner as Waller, and his solos are constantly inventive and invigorating while never straying from the familiar. Moreover, ...

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Album Review

Mose Allison: Mose Allison Sings

Read "Mose Allison Sings" reviewed by Riel Lazarus

by Riel Lazarus
November 16, 2006

Working through Prestige Records' reissue of Mose Allison Sings, the challenge arises of describing the pianist/vocalist's unique sound. The salty-sweet taste of butter and jam on toast is at once an unspectacular metaphor and right on the mark. Allison's music is a delicious blend of tart and tang, as enjoyable in the morning as it is a late-night snack, simple yet significant, unassuming and infectious. His style is indelibly his own, residing somewhere between the Delta blues ...

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Album Review

Mose Allison: Mose Allison Sings

Read "Mose Allison Sings" reviewed by Jim Santella

by Jim Santella
October 21, 2006

There's nobody else quite like Mose Allison. Try to think of a musician who even comes close. He's so unique that we all know from the very start who we're listening to. And nobody else can fill that niche. But Allison didn't start out as a singer. He was Stan Getz's pianist in 1956-57, and he began recording for Prestige as a pianist who also played trumpet in 1957. His piano trio did bebop instrumentals, and Allison added an occasional ...

Recording

Mose Allison: Live 1978

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
January 10, 2023

There are plenty of post-war jazz songwriter-pianists who work overtime to be with-it. Some come off as Beat poets and cool daddy-o's while others strain to be clever phrase-turners and honky-tonk players. For me, there are only two truly hip originals—Thelonious Monk and Mose Allison. Monk and Mose each had a distinct sound that was both jagged and playful and both were humble and almost meek off the bandstand, a true mark of cool. The difference between them is that ...
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Obituary

Mose Allison (1927-2016)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
November 16, 2016

Mose Allison, a jazz-folk pianist and singer-songwriter who brought white rural imagery to the urban jazz scene and was highly regarded by every musician who played with him, even those who were initially wary of his Mississippi roots, died on Nov. 15. He was 89. Mose was one of a kind. While Dr. John and Leon Russell are two pianists who shared Mose's earthy naturalism, only Mose grasped the nuanced aspects of modern jazz and the music's cosmopolitan wryness. All ...
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Obituary

Mose Allison Is Gone

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
November 16, 2016

Mose Allison has died at the age of 89. A Mississippi pianist, singer, composer, songwriter and sometime trumpeter, Allison made his New York debut in the 1950s as a bebop pianist. He worked with Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Gerry Mulligan and a variety of other post-bop musicians, but came to fame employing his Mississippi folksiness and command of the blues idiom. He led trios in that genre for most of his career. His work had a powerful effect on such ...
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Recording

Mose Allison: Live in California

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
October 29, 2015

If there's an artistic link between jazz and blues-rock, then Mose Allison is one of the early bridges. In the late 1950s and early '60s, the jazz pianist from Tippo, Miss., had a remarkably casual, original blues style that touched many rockers. Mose's singing voice was just as seductive as his playing—more hick poet than bop or pop crooner, and his original songs expressed a witty, off-key rural restlessness that called life as he saw it. Though Mose's songs have ...
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Interview

Interview: Mose Allison (Part 1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
September 11, 2010

Mose Allison sings like he's taking a bath with his clothes on. There's a lovely howling casualness about his vocal style, but what you hear is somewhat deceptive. Within that rural yowl is wisdom and depth, not only in the lyrics of the songs he chooses but also in his piano playing. Mose may initially sound like he just fell off the turnip truck, but he played and recorded with Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, Stan Getz and Gerry Mulligan ...
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Recording

Mose Allison, "The Way of the World" (CD Review)

Source: Between the Grooves with Philip Booth
July 17, 2010

Click here to read my review of veteran jazz and blues talent Mose Allison's latest, as published in Relix mag. Or see the full text below.

Mose Allison, The Way of the World (Anti-)

Mose Allison, at 82, remains a gifted pianist, a laidback singer whose songs are often too clever for their own good--an artist caught in the cracks between jazz and blues. For his first studio recording since 1997, Allison leads a trio augmented by tenor saxophonist Walter ...
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Interview

Mose Allison's New Album "The Way of the World" Just Released - Celebrated Artist Featured on NPR's All Things Considered

Source: Michael Ricci
March 24, 2010

The incomparable Mose Allison has just released his new album The Way Of The World, his first studio album in twelve years. Allison is one of the true originals, an essential element in the evolution of contemporary music. Sighted by The Kinks' Ray Davies as the “missing link between jazz and blues," Allison has returned in peak form. Guided by Grammy winning producer Joe Henry, The Way of the World has all the acerbic subversive wit and effortless blues infused ...
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Recording

Review: At 82 Mose Allison Sings Like a Sage

Source: All About Jazz
March 22, 2010

Mose Allison, “The Way Of The World" (Anti-) At age 82, Mose Allison is not about to change. He's still an unclassifiable classicist who would find a single musical genre as confining as being limited to one octave on his piano. And so he bridges the divides between the blues, pop and jazz on “The Way Of The World," his first studio album in 12 years. The common denominator on the 12 cuts is the joy with which ...
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Recording

Mose Allison to Release Anti Debut "The Way of the World" March 23

Source: Michael Ricci
March 15, 2010

Mose Allison's new album and ANTI- debut The Way of the World arrives March 23rd, 2010, marking his return to the recording studio after a 12 year absence. Working with maverick producer Joe Henry, Allison has found his most sympathetic setting in years, surrounded by young, vibrant players, who add surprising slide guitar and some sinewy saxophone to the classic Mose sound; The Way of the World also features Mose' first-ever duet with his daughter, singer Amy Allison. Yet this ...
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Interview

Singer/Songwriter Mose Allison Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz
February 16, 2010

Veteran AAJ Contributor R.J. DeLuke spoke with Allison recently about his new album, The Way of the World (Anti-, 2010), coming in March. Allison ...
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"When I discovered Mose Allison I felt I had discovered the missing link between jazz and blues" —Ray Davies "The man's voice was heaven. So cool, so decisively hip... Mose was my man. I felt him to be the epitome of restrained screaming power." —Pete Townshend "For over thirty years, this premier songwriter, singer and pianist has stared down the oncoming doom, peppering his idiosyncratic blend of jazz and blues with mordant wit and unflinching honesty." —Village Voice