Collectables
1982
Middle Class White Boy
About This Album
Recorded in a live setting in 1982 -- the same year as his Middle Class White Boy album -- Lessons in Living is a mixed bag. The material is terrific, and Mose Allison is in typically fine form. The issue lies more with the "all-star" band assembled for the date: bassist Jack Bruce, drummer Billy Cobham, and soloists Eric Gale (guitarist) and Lou Donaldson ( alto saxophonist). For starters, Allison didn't need a large band --or any band, really -- to shine. Though he had been absent from the recording scene for six years until that point, he had continued to perform live and his chops as both a pianist and a singer are stellar. These players, fine as they are, don't seem to understand the subtler kind of magic that Allison puts across in a club setting, and don't know how to lay back enough -- this is particularly the case with Cobham, who is overly busy throughout the date, double-timing already fast tunes like "Wild Man in the Street." Bruce, playing electric bass, has a wonderful facility to move and shift gears with the pianist, but still feels a shade behind Cobham's fast and furious beat -- the overdriven "Your Mind Is on Vacation" is a case in point.
Track List (try tracks 1,4,7 and 9)

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