Quote

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

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.
Self
Myth
Dad
Watching
Player
Taught
Whether
True
Stride
Play
Piano

More quotes by Mose Allison

Image
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
Image
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
Image
So I'm in my 51st year of playin' mostly nightclubs. I do some concerts.
Mose Allison
Image
All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues.
Mose Allison
Image
I'm always storing away phrases and ideas and things that I think might turn into songs.
Mose Allison
Image
I'm improvising all the time. Everything I do is improvised. On the piano, at least.
Mose Allison
Image
I never bothered about keeping track.Every now and then someone records one of my songs, and I get credit for 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 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
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 remember the first check I got from The Who's recording [of Young Man Blues]. I'd been getting checks for $10 and $15 and so forth, and this one was for a much larger amount than that. I thought it was a mistake.
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
[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
Ever since the world ended, I don't go out as much
Mose Allison
Image
The thing of playin' and singin' never bothered me.
Mose Allison
Image
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
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
Image
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
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