Quote

As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.

Mose Allison

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Mose Allison
Age: 89 †
Born: 1927
Born: November 11
Died: 2016
Died: November 15
Jazz Musician
Jazz Pianist
Pianist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Tippo
Mississippi
Mose John Allison
Jr.
Instrumental
Concerned
Improvisation
Swing
Swings
Invention
Essentials
Jazz
Melodic
Personality

More quotes by Mose Allison

Image
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
Image
All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues.
Mose Allison
Image
I don't sit down to write a song they just come to me from something that somebody says, or something in the news. The punchline comes to me, and I go over it in my head and get the song form. I hadn't been doing that a lot.
Mose Allison
Image
I have lots of CDs that came out at one time or another, and according to the statements I've gotten, no one's buying them.I figured there's no need making a new CD. There are plenty of mine out there, and none of them are selling.
Mose Allison
Image
You always want to write the perfect song. But no one will ever write the perfect song, I guess. I would just like to write on that has all the elements of what I'm tring to do. And I'm working on it. I'm always working on it.
Mose Allison
Image
I finally decided if I was going to make a living, I was gonna have to come to New York.
Mose Allison
Image
I just have a lot off different influences.
Mose Allison
Image
The things that really matter don't mix with idle chatter.
Mose Allison
Image
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
Image
I'm playin' music for a certain type of person. Fortunately, there are more and more of us. At least there are more comin' to see me than there were 30 years ago or so.
Mose Allison
Image
I didn't feel anything [frustraiting]. I just kept working 110 or 120 nights a year.
Mose Allison
Image
I'm improvising all the time. Everything I do is improvised. On the piano, at least.
Mose Allison
Image
If it's worth remembering, I'll remember it. If something keeps coming back, if I keep thinking of that phrase, if I see manifestations of it at different times and different places, then I feel it's worth making a song out of.
Mose Allison
Image
The thing of playin' and singin' never bothered me.
Mose Allison
Image
I'm always storing away phrases and ideas and things that I think might turn into songs.
Mose Allison
Image
The jazz boom was goin' on then so there was a lot happenin' in New York at that time.
Mose Allison
Image
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
Image
My dad was a self-taught stride piano player. The myth is - I don't whether it's true or not - that he taught himself to play by watching a player piano.
Mose Allison
Image
[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
Image
I started going to a piano teacher at 5 years old, but pretty soon I started picking things out on my own and stopped taking music lessons. I never could read music very well, but I've still been doing it.
Mose Allison