For most of the legendary vocalists of jazz, you can hear a long line of descendants and copycats—singers whose debt to, say, Joe Williams or Carmen McRae, is clear and obvious. And then there’s Mose Allison. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone on the scene who sounds influenced by him, because the guy’s wry, nasally, artless, Mississippi take on the blues is so utterly his own. And his odd, classically-infused piano solos are inimitable as well. He’s past 80 now, and still touring nonstop (by himself, picking up local sidemen in each town). If ever there were an advertisement for the life-sustaining properties of smoke-choked bars and world-weariness, Mose is it. MARK D. FEFER

Nov. 17-19, 7:30 p.m., 2009