Mose Allison Quotes
-
I finally decided if I was going to make a living, I was gonna have to come to New York.
→ -
I never bothered about keeping track.Every now and then someone records one of my songs, and I get credit for it.
→ -
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.
→ -
It was the British rockers that saved me. They brought me to a different generation altogether [in the 60th]. The Who and The Yardbirds and Georgie Fame and Van Morrison and all those people. The only person who ever did my songs in [ U.S] country was Bonnie Raitt.
→ -
The jazz boom was goin' on then so there was a lot happenin' in New York at that time.
→ -
I didn't feel anything [frustraiting]. I just kept working 110 or 120 nights a year.
→ -
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.
→ -
I do some concerts. At the moment, I'm being helped a lot by a gig I play in London, which is Pizza Express.
→ -
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.
→ -
I told [my daughter Amy] at an early age that she had a good ear. But I didn't influence her music much. She's pretty much developed her style on her own, and she's a talented songwriter.
→ -
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.
→ -
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.
→ -
Everybody cryin' mercy / When they don't know the meaning of the word.
→ -
I was taking chemical engineering. But I went into the army after that. When I came out of the army, I was a different person. I met a lot of good jazz players in the army.
→ -
So I'm in my 51st year of playin' mostly nightclubs. I do some concerts.
→ -
I'm happy whenever anybody does my material. I don't care what they do with it. I do what I want to with other people's songs.
→ -
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.
→ -
I been getting good crowds. It only took 50 years.
→ -
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.
→ -
I just try to do as good job with the material as I can and play some jazz as well, some improvised music, and do that every night. Just see where it goes.
→ -
As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.
→ -
I haven't stopped and I don't plan on stoppin' any time soon.
→ -
All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues.
→ -
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.
→ -
Ever since the world ended, I don't go out as much
→ -
I'm always storing away phrases and ideas and things that I think might turn into songs.
→ -
The thing of playin' and singin' never bothered me.
→ -
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.
→ -
There's a few tunes of mine that don't have jokes, but most of them have a joke and they have a humorous point of view somewhere.
→ -
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.
→
Related Authors
-
Charlie Parker Saxophonist -
Kenny Burrell Guitarist -
-
Rahsaan Roland Kirk Multi-instrumentalist -
Thelonious Monk Pianist -
Stan Getz Saxophonist -
Oscar Peterson Jazz Pianist -
Duke Ellington Composer -
Dizzy Gillespie Bandleader -
Charles Mingus Bassist -
Count Basie Jazz Pianist -
Zoot Sims Musician -
Elvis Costello Singer-songwriter -
Dave Brubeck Jazz Pianist -
Bob Brookmeyer Trombonist -
Ray Charles Singer-songwriter -
Georgie Fame Singer -
Billie Holiday Singer -
Van Morrison Singer-songwriter -
Joe Pass Guitarist