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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

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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.
Going
Started
Years
Pretty
Picking
Things
Read
Stopped
Never
Stills
Piano
Still
Lessons
Music
Soon
Wells
Taking
Well
Teacher

More quotes by 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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[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 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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As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.
Mose Allison
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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
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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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Ever since the world ended, I don't go out as much
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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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 sang and wrote songs when I was 12 years old.
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 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 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'm always storing away phrases and ideas and things that I think might turn into songs.
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 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'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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I just have a lot off different influences.
Mose Allison
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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
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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