Mose Allison

Mose Allison is a fine, Bop-influenced pianist with a light, thin voice who happens to be a crackerjack songwriter and performer -- think of Loudon Wainwright III fronting the Nat Cole Trio. Allison comes on like a cocktail mixture of down home southerner and penthouse sophisticate: he's a mint juleped martini and he's managed to keep his career going for decades, despite not quite fitting into any one category. Allison's a (very) white bluesman, with humor too biting for the sensitive Singer-Songwriter set, and despite starting out playing with Stan Getz, he's considered too "commercial" by some small-minded jazz fans. Luckily, such rock era artists as Tom Waits, Pete Townshend, Bonnie Raitt, and especially Van Morrison (who has recorded a whole album of his tunes) have kept royalties in Allison's pocket and his name in the public eye. Allison's latest albums have confronted life and love in old age with equal doses of wit and sadness. Generations who once thought they "hope they die before they get old" will be scooping them up very soon.