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Jazz Legend Mose Allison Joins The Long List Of Musicians Lost In 2016

By Alan Ewart

From the archive: published Nov 16, 2016, 9 years ago. Details may have changed since.

Jazz legend Mose Allison has passed away at the age of 89. Allison was renowned as a genre-defying artist of consummate skill. Allison was a gifted pianist, a witty and sardonic lyricist, and someone who was not afraid to cross genres when writing his own music. Allison has collaborated with the likes of Van Morrison, in fact, the L.A. Times reports that Morrison described Mose Allison as “one of the great songwriters of the century.” Allison brought the delta blues sound to the jazz world but it was his songwriting skill that won him the hearts of many musicians and fans across the world.

Allison’s songs were covered by artists from across the entire musical spectrum. The Who, The Yardbirds, Elvis Costello, and even The Clash covered Mose’s songs. Allison was often described as a jazz pianist who sang the blues, but he was also renowned as an absolute gentleman. I met the great man a few years ago when he played his annual week-long residency at London’s Pizza Express. Then in his mid-70’s Allison played two sets during the evening and spent the time between sets sitting at the bar having a beer with my wife and I. Mose was warm, engaging, and humble, a real gentleman who will be mourned by anyone who ever heard him play.

According to the New York Times, Mose Allison started his career as a jazz pianist, working with some of the best known big-band leaders of the 1950’s and 1960’s. It was, however, his work with the Mose Allison Trio that endeared him to so many. Allison once said that his songwriting fell into three categories: slapstick, social commentary, and personal crisis and that “sometimes all three elements end up in one song.” If you want an example of Allison’s sense of humor making its way into his songs you need look no further than the hilarious “Getting There.”

Mose Allison was born in the Mississippi Delta and was playing piano from the age of five. According to Rolling Stone, Allison was soon playing all the tunes that he heard on the jukebox in his local drugstore, Allison learned the songs by ear.

Allison was still performing live shows as recently as 2012 and he was named a jazz master by the National Endowment of the Arts in 2013. Allison’s career spanned almost 70 years and won him the admiration of his music industry peers. Van Morrison praised both his musicianship and his philosophical outlook on life and music.

“I followed Mose’s career. I heard a lot of records and I saw a lot of gigs and I realized that he was a philosopher. He’s a musician, but he’s also a philosopher.”

Sadly, Allison is just the latest in a very long list of accomplished musicians who have passed away this year. It sometimes seems that every time you log on to social media you read of the death of another great. In just the last week Allison has joined Leonard Cohen and Leon Russell on the list of musicians who have died in 2016. When you add the loss of Prince, David Bowie, Merle Haggard, and Glenn Frey to Allison’s demise, many will lament the loss of a long list of musical legends.

Allison’s longtime friend and collaborator, Ben Sidran, was one of those who took to social media to lament Mose’s passing. Sidran simply said, “today we lost Mose Allison, I don’t know what else to say.”

Of course, it isn’t just the famous we have lost this year. Many will remember the deaths of Indie outfit Viola Beach in a car wreck earlier this year. The death of Architects guitarist Tom Searle from cancer at just 28-years-old was a loss that affected many, particularly as the band were just reaching the level of success they had spent years searching for.

The addition of Mose Allison to the long list of musicians we have lost makes 2016 a very sad year for the music industry.

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