Listening to Prestige 281: Mose Allison

Once again, listening to the Prestige recordings by Mose Allison, I'm reminded that the later recordings, which made him justly a cult legend as a singer-songwriter, are not the whole story. Allison was a brilliant composer, and this album, though it went a long way toward establishing his reputation as a vocalist, both with his own and other songwriters' material, is an excellent place to reflect on just how good he was. "Creek Bank," in particular, is a gem, one of my favorites of his jazz compositions.

But the whole group of composed pieces, the Creek Bank Suite, as it could legitimately be called, although he only gave the name of "suite" to his Back Country compositions from his first album, is worth many listenings. Back Country Suite is a suite because the interlocking compositions are short and gain their power by accumulation. Here, as in Local Color, we have a series of pieces tied to back country Mississippi by their titles and by a certain feeling, to New York by the bebop influence of Bud Powell and George Wallington and Allison's own musical sophistication.

As to the titles, "Dinner on the Ground" is so back country that would be easy for a picnic-fancying Easterner, perhaps accustomed to listening to Mose while spreading a repast on the ground at a jazz festival. I might not have gotten its significance without having listened to Merle Haggard's account of an impoverished family in his song "Daddy Frank":

I don't remember ever going hungry,
But I remember Mama cooking on the ground.

Unlike Back Country Suite and Local Color, this album, as it was pressed, does not lead with the instrumental sequence, although the session log has the  four tunes recorded first. That's relegated to the "B" side, not that "A" and "B" sides are a particularly important concept on an LP. But "The Seventh Son," which did lead off the "A" side of the album, was also the "A" side of two different 45 RPM singles, where the hierarchy of sides does matter, "If You Live," Allison's self-penned song, was on the other side of the first release, and "Parchman Farm" was on the second. Both of these songs are favorites of Allison fans and collectors, and both of them were gradually dropped from his performing repertoire. As he would explain to an interviewer in later years, he started to find that he couldn't really sing about cotton sacks any more, in a world where even the deep South was all mechanized mega-farms. "The Seventh Son" is by Willie Dixon, perhaps the first bluesman to become famous primarily for writing songs for others, in this case Chess recording artist Willie Mabon.

Another difference -- no trumpet track on this one. I miss it. I liked the trumpet tracks. But the trumpet was not Mose's strongest card.

Addison Farmer and Ronnie Free both get some well-deserved solo space here. Farmer, by this time, was primarily playing with Allison, although he did continue to work on and off with twin brother Art, including the first Jazztet album. He would continue with Allison until his death in 1963.

Creek Bank was the name of the album. Allison's material, especially his songs, made it onto various compilation albums. One, of sort of random instrumentals, was called Mose Allison Plays for Lovers, which seems to have been a mid-1960s marketing notion of Bob Weinstock's. He had Yusef Lateef and John Coltrane playing for lovers, too, although in the movie Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise vehemently rejects Trane as an aid to lovemaking.

Order Listening to Prestige Vol 2

Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1954-1956 is here! You can order your signed copy or copies through the link above.

Tad Richards will strike a nerve with all of us who were privileged to have lived thru the beginnings of bebop, and with those who have since fallen under the spell of this American phenomenon…a one-of-a-kind reference book, that will surely take its place in the history of this music.

                                                                                                                                                --Dave Grusin

An important reference book of all the Prestige recordings during the time period. Furthermore, Each song chosen is a brilliant representation of the artist which leaves the listener free to explore further. The stories behind the making of each track are incredibly informative and give a glimpse deeper into the artists at work.

                                                                                                                --Murali Coryell