October 4, 2024

Mose Allison

Mose Allison
Live at Scullers

Boston – October 22, 2005
by Matthew S. Robinson

There were few better places to be for the weekend of the famed Head of the Charles Regatta than the award-winning Scullers Jazz Club (www.scullerjazz.com), overlooking the Charles River where said race takes place while listening to the contemporary timelessness of Mississippi sage Mose Allison.

From the swagger of ‘Fools Paradise’ to the bassy bounce of ‘Look What You Made Me Do,’ Allison worked his dipping baritone and firmly tinkling fingers through a near nonstop jukebox of hip and insightful tunes, showing time and again that there is a heckuvalot more to write about than just love. In addition to the Randy Newman-esque ‘Ever Since the

World Ended’ and Gov. Jimmy Davis’ ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ Allison also offered a paced run through John Loudermilk’s ‘You Call It Jogging’ and a cool and breezy stroll around George Perlman’s ‘Indian Summer.’ ‘Everybody’s Crying Mercy’ was as pertinent as ever and

‘Your Molecular Structure’ may have been all the more appropriate considering that MIT was an oarstroke away. In any case, Allison offered something for everyone in his multi-generational audience. In fact, despite the fact that his rhythm section was made up of what the septugenarian Southern gentleman might call ‘yung’uns,’ this cleverly self-proclaimed ‘Certified Senior Citizen’ left them half a beat behind time after time, showing that he has not lost a lick of timing over the course of his long and storied career.

C. 2005 M. S. Robinson ARR


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