 Mose Allison Having not heard Mose Allison's older recordings, I can't really say that this is the best place to start if you want to get into Mose Allison, but it worked for me. Culled from the artist's three Blue Note albums released between 1987 and 1993, this Jazz Profile compilation offers a portrait of a sublimely twisted performer with a great home-spun charm and the best lyrics this side of Bob Dorough. Where else might you stumble across a line like this one from Mose's "Top Forty?" … "No more philosophic melancholia/800 pounds of electric genitalia."That's the most suitable assessment of rock music ever made by a jazz artist, bar none. Mose's style is akin to Dorough's in that he takes on the persona of the sharp-witted observer (perhaps "rustic buffoon?" as he says in "What's Your Movie?") looking at life through world-weary eyes and speaking the truth with an ironic drawl. Most of the songs hinge on a central joke: "Putting up With Me," for example, basically boils down to "I still can't forgive you for putting up with me." "I Looked in the Mirror": "I looked in the mirror this morning and what did I see?Etcetera. Unlike Dorough, whose style is firmly rooted in bebop, Mose Allison comes much more from a New Orleans blues tradition, so the songs are filled with a much warmer brand of humor, but with a very similar intelligence and charm. The wordplay can be amazing, often encapsulating a similar love of clichés as "The Simpsons" … "What's your movie?/Are you taking a trip to the moon?Mose puts all of this winning smarm across with a self-deprecating vocal style that makes Dorough look like Caruso. If anything, his limited vocal range, and the fact that these songs basically all have the same tempo and feel, are the only drawbacks to the disc, which gets better with repeat listens. Most discs seem long at twenty tracks, but this one has 14 and feels like it could use a bit of trimming. But individually, almost every song is very solid and memorable – it's just that a little bit of late-period Mose goes a long way. I definitely am curious to check out his earlier stuff, which probably has a bit broader stylistic (and vocal) range. Still, highly recommended as a portrait of an underrated, very unique performer, one of America's finest and most original voices. Fans of Bob Dorough will dig it heartily. I close with another lyric, always the best advertisement for Mose Allison's peculiar genius: "Well down in the delta and on the south side/Extra points for namechecking Charley Pride – haven't seen that happen since "Pride (in the Name of Love)." Oh wait, that was just regular pride? Oh, I like Charley Pride more than regular pride.
Review by Leilani Crampp |