Explore Quotes by Mose Allison

I finally decided if I was going to make a living, I was gonna have to come to New York.

I do some concerts. At the moment, I'm being helped a lot by a gig I play in London, which is Pizza Express.

At this point, I don't listen to other people too much. I'm not really that affected by anyone.

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'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.

The jazz boom was goin' on then so there was a lot happenin' in New York at that time.

I never sit down and write. I just sorta let things form in my brain.

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.

A young man ain't nothin' in the world these days

Ever since the world ended, I don't go out as much

All the classic jazz players all sang and a lot of 'em sang blues.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.