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I went through the whole number, you know. The swing era, the boogie woogie era, the bebop era. Thelonious Monk is still one of my favorites. So a lot of these people had their effect on me.

Mose Allison

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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.
Effects
Boogie
Influence
Favorites
Numbers
Monk
Went
Swing
Stills
Swings
Still
Eras
Whole
Effect
Woogie
People
Number
Bebop

More quotes by Mose Allison

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I never bothered about keeping track.Every now and then someone records one of my songs, and I get credit for it.
Mose Allison
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I start out with words, with the idea, the line. Then after I get a line or two, I try to find what melodic line those lines would be suited to. As soon as I find the form I can finish the song in my head.
Mose Allison
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[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
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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
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I'm not inspired by songwriting at all that took place years ago. I'm pretty well established, as far as my influences go. I don't listen to music anymore. It all sounds the same to me.
Mose Allison
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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
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Ever since the world ended, I don't go out as much
Mose Allison
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I'm improvising all the time. Everything I do is improvised. On the piano, at least.
Mose Allison
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So I'm in my 51st year of playin' mostly nightclubs. I do some concerts.
Mose Allison
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I've heard some tunes in recent years that were pretty close to that same idea. The idea was you turn on the radio and you want to hear some music and up comes a commercial.
Mose Allison
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The thing of playin' and singin' never bothered me.
Mose Allison
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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
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The jazz boom was goin' on then so there was a lot happenin' in New York at that time.
Mose Allison
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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
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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
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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
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I'm always storing away phrases and ideas and things that I think might turn into songs.
Mose Allison
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I didn't feel anything [frustraiting]. I just kept working 110 or 120 nights a year.
Mose Allison
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I finally decided if I was going to make a living, I was gonna have to come to New York.
Mose Allison
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As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.
Mose Allison