I loved interviewing pianist Mose Allison for The Wall Street Journal (here) and for JazzWax (here) in 2010. Mose was a singular artist with a wry sense of humor and a rich, home-grown keyboard style who understood rural wisdom, hard work and suffering. Mose relocated to New York from Mississippi in the mid-1950s as a jazz sideman. By the late '50s, he had parlayed his bluesy, jagged piano and clever, aw-shucks lyric-writing into a soft storm of rural wit, swaggering riffs and howling vocals. Prestige's Bob Weinstock got him and featured him playing and singing on Back Country Suite and Local Color. Both masterpieces were recorded in 1957. [Photo above and all other images of John Chin, right, and Richard Julian by Lauren Desberg]
In conversation, Mose was gentle, easygoing and slathered in Southern charm and understated hip pragmatism. Like Fats Waller, Count Basie, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk and Donald Fagen, among others, Mose was one of a kind, both as a songwriter and a jazz pianist. [Photo above of Mose Allison]
So imagine my delight when John Chin: Anything Mose! Featuring Richard Julian (Jinsy Music) crossed my desk. The album showcases John's Mose-inspired piano and Richard's guitar and Mose-ian vocals. But John wasn't satisfied to hold this project to a trio. He added horns: John Chin (p), Richard Julian (g,vcl), Kenyatta Beasley (tp), Stacy Dillard (ss, ts), Pete Rende (pump organ), Matt Pavolka (b) and Dan Rieser (d). To John's credit, it all works without ever leaving Moseville.
The tracks are Your Molecular Structure, Your Mind Is on Vacation, Smashed!, Stop This World, Middle Class White Boy, Parchman Farm, I Don't Worry About a Thing, Seventh Son, Tell Me Something, Monsters of the ID and Was. Ten of the 11 songs are by Mose, while Seventh Son is by Willie Dixon and was recorded by Mose.
John is an accomplished pianist who has recorded four albums and performs regularly at jazz clubs in Brooklyn, crossing bridges to Manhattan to perform at Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Blue Note and other marquee clubs. Richard is a Brooklyn singer-songwriter and guitarist who has released six albums.
Knowing Mose, I love this album. John and Richard fully get Mose's art, attack and quiet hipster ethos. What always fascinated me about Mose is how he was able to coax barefoot wisdom and funky jazz to work together. Mose's music sounds simple but it's far from easy. You can't interpret his songs. You have to get into his space and yowl and rock.
Anything Mose! pays tribute to the Southern singer-songwriter and folk-funk pianist in all his Greenwich Village glory. Hearing this album takes you back to a time when artists and thinkers from around the country relocated to New York and converged in downtown clubs and coffee houses to express their regional differences and exceptionalism.
Like Mose, John and Richard understand what it means to be outsiders embraced by New York insiders who appreciate their scene. Mose would have dug Anything Mose! He would have listened, there'd be a summer pause and in that drawl of his, he'd say, "They're quite good, aren't they? Maybe I should think about taking a few nights off."
Mose Allison died in 2016.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find John Chin and Richard Julian's Anything Mose! (Jinsy Music) here.
JazzWax clips: Here's a mini doc on the project...
Here's Your Mind Is on Vacation...
Bonus: Here's Mose performing I Don't Worry About a Thing...
And here's Mose in the U.K. performing Everybody's Cryin' Mercy...
