Producing “Mose Allison American Legend,
Live in California”
A note from Pete Magadini (drummer /producer)
It all began in San Francisco about 48 years ago at two different clubs - the El Matador and the Jazz Workshop (both well known San Francisco jazz clubs, on Broadway, in North Beach) that are no longer there.
From that time onward I have played regularly with Mose for about 4 to 8 weeks a year depending on where I was living and where he was coming to play. Most of the time it would be the same bass player from that area and myself. On this recording it is Bill Douglass and he is a fabulous Mose Allison bassist.
(I have also played with a variety of other great bassists on Mose engagements)
How it worked is that Mose would always change up his rhythm sections depending on which “neck of the woods” that he was playing. However, sometimes he would stick with your trio if the travel wasn’t too far and we all had it going well. That would happen a lot if we were going from, say, a club engagement to a jazz festival or a concert somewhere else. *
How I happened to produce Mose Allison American Legend Live in California?
This album is all about Mose performing at his best in an intimate club setting in Fairfax, California (just north of San Francisco) called “19 Broadway”. I originally had asked Mose if I could just record the instrumentals, then his friend Bobby Palermo asked him If I could record it all. Bobby got the ok and we did. This album was recorded over three days (4 shows) Friday, Saturday and one Sunday Matinee.
Most of the songs are from the Sunday Matinee (last day) and the Saturday night before that.
The most precious quality of this recording, in my opinion, is that it captures the essence of the real Mose, the one that patrons of Mose Allison and his music were hearing in the clubs.
As a side note: performing with Mose, as a drummer or bassist, took a certain kind of empathy to Mose’s grooves and time feels. Mose trios always were expected to be able to not only play jazz, but also jazz with a straight eighth note groove-a blues shuffle groove-a laid back New Orleans type groove and fast latin, jazzy type things that Mose usually referred to as just “Latin”. And of course dead slow ballads and very down-home “straight ahead” slow tempos were also a must if you were going to be in his trio for long. (listen to “Cryin’ Mercy” and “You are my Sunshine” and several others). Mose is also very adept in using polyrhythms in his piano solos. He innately understands the concept.
You will hear that the audience in the room is totally into Mose and the trio. This phenomenon would almost always happen when Mose performed live in clubs but the music never left the room! Now it has and it’s been captured and preserved in this live recording (and coincidentally the final release of any living Mose Allison recording) and is forever commemorated on “Mose Allison American Legend, Live in California”.
If you love Mose Allison you will know what I mean.
If you’re hearing him for the first time you will still know what I mean.
-
*I also consider this album as a tribute to all the other fine musicians who have performed with Mose through the years.
- Pete Magadini
