Low-key Allison hits area
The chief irony in the career of Mose Allison – a highly ironic songwriter himself – is that he is better known in England than in his native United States.
Don’t get the wrong idea. This sardonic piano jazz-and-blues man has been a legend in the U.S. for most of his 54-year career. But he’s even more appreciated in the U.K.
“The British know more about the history of blues and jazz,” said Allison, 76, who plays the Panida Theater in Sandpoint on Tuesday and CenterStage in Spokane on Wednesday.
“In this country, it’s, ‘What’s going to sell next week?’ Over there, they still appreciate the history.”
His fan base in Britain has paid off nicely, especially when it comes to royalties. Allison has never had a chart hit of his own, but many of his songs have been performed by British artists such as Elvis Costello, John Mayall, the Yardbirds, the Clash, Georgie Fame and the Who.
“The Who did ‘Young Man’s Blues’ on ‘Live at Leeds,’ ” said Allison, by phone from his Long Island, N.Y., home. “I’m still getting a few bucks for that. That gave me more publicity than any of the other covers. Pete Townshend always cites me as being an influence.”
In 1972, Townshend wrote an essay about Allison in which he called him a “real, cool, relaxed, genuine, funky, hipped-out white hero.”
Townshend said he was sold on Allison since the first time he borrowed a friend’s record in 1963. “From that day on, as I walked down city streets, I imagined myself to be Mose,” he wrote.
However, don’t get the idea that Allison’s style is anything like the windmilling, guitar-slashing rockers who loved him. He is a low-key jazzman who sits quietly at his piano, accompanied by a bass player and drummer (Dennis Sexton and Peter Magadini, on this tour), and sings in a smooth, laid-back style that owes something to his own hero, Nat King Cole.
It’s a style that he had already developed by his first professional gig, at Sammy’s Lounge in Lake Charles, La., in 1950.
“I didn’t have the material I have now,” said Allison. “I was doing a lot of Nat King Cole and Louis Jordan stuff. But it was more or less the same as I’ve been doing for 54 years.”
He went on to perform with such jazz luminaries as Stan Getz and Gerry Mulligan, but he made his reputation with his own trio, playing his own music.
He made a particular splash with 1957’s “Back Country Suite” and 1976’s “Your Mind is on Vacation.”
“The All-Music Guide,” a guide to essential recordings, calls Allison “among the most understated, yet distinctive pianists and vocalists in either jazz or blues.”
Today he still performs about 120 nights a year, including regular gigs in London and at the Iridium in Manhattan. He says that the response to some of his songs has actually improved over the decades, especially some of his more sardonic songs with titles such as “Monsters of the Id” and “Middle Class White Boy,” which contains the verse: “And when I ride my motorbike/ it’s pure Attila the Hun/ just another middle class white boy/ out trying to have some fun.”
“People appreciate my more ironic approach now more than they used to,” said Allison. “I used to be called ‘cynical.’ I knew that wasn’t true. Cynics don’t have a sense of humor. I’m more of a comedian. I might even accept ‘sarcastic.’ “
He said that he hasn’t written too many songs recently, mainly because he doesn’t have to. He has 50-plus years of material to draw on.
“I remember something that Thelonius Monk once said when he was asked if he’d written any new songs,” said Allison. “He said, ‘I’m still waiting for people to listen to my old songs.’ ”