Creativity Quote by Mose Allison

It lands like an offhand aside, but it’s doing real work: Mose Allison is staking out taste as a lifelong practice, not a phase. “I like a lot” is casual, even faintly evasive, the way musicians talk when they don’t want to turn admiration into a press release. Then comes the kicker: “I still like him.” That tiny “still” is a quiet act of defiance against the churn of scenes, reputations, and critical fashion. In jazz, where allegiances can harden into camps and where innovation gets mythologized on a schedule, Allison frames loyalty as something earned over time.

The name matters. Lennie Tristano wasn’t a safe consensus pick; he was cerebral, polarizing, intensely focused on line, rhythm, and a kind of cool rigor that could read as aloof. By keeping the praise plainspoken, Allison avoids fanboying and sidesteps the usual “influence” narrative. He’s not saying Tristano changed his life; he’s saying the music keeps holding up. That’s the higher compliment.

There’s also a subtle self-portrait here. Allison’s own work thrives on understatement: blues-inflected, slyly literate, allergic to grandstanding. The quote mirrors that aesthetic. No theory talk, no sanctimony, just a musician’s durable pleasure. In a culture that rewards novelty and punishes consistency, “I still like him” becomes a statement of values: integrity over hype, listening over branding, and an insistence that time is the only critic worth fearing.