Way back in the late ’50s, when he penned the song “Young Man’s Blues,” Mose Allison was indeed a young man and cool jazz was king. Then, in the revolutionary ’60s, Pete Townshend and The Who took Allison’s understated lament for the downtrodden, turned it up to 11 and fired it back at America as an angry, powerful, passionate anthem for the times. Now, some 40 years later, Pete Townshend did not die before he got old and rock music has joined jazz on the shelf, as a formerly dominant genre of contemporary pop music, but Allison is still going strong at 81 years old. He spoke with Fast Forward Weekly from his Long Island home, just before embarking on a slate of shows in the U.K.

“I don’t consider it going out on tour,” he says of his latest outing. “I just take what comes, when it comes. I’m working about 100 nights a year, a little over. I used to work more than that when there were jazz clubs around, all over the country. I used to go out for three or four weeks at one time, but there’s no more gigs like that around, you know.”

Does he remember the first time he heard The Who’s version of “Young Man’s Blues”? “Well, I remember when I got the cheque,” he says with an audible chuckle. “I thought it was a mistake. I’d been getting cheques for $10, $12. Then I got one that was for a lot more, it was like $6,000 or $7,000, something like that. I thought it was a mistake, but then I found out it wasn’t.” When the vanguard of the British Invasion re-invented American blues and rock ’n’ roll, they found ample material in Allison’s songbook. Allison, in turn, credits them with having saved him “from oblivion.”

“I know Pete Townshend,” Allison says. “He’s come to see me a couple of times. I met him a couple of times, went out to his house one time. He’s done about as much for me as anybody. Of course, Van Morrison and Bonnie Raitt also have done me a lot of good, but Pete Townshend was one of the first.”

In the ’50s, when Allison debuted, his piano playing, boogie-woogie jazz with touches of classical composers like Bela Bartok, was exciting and innovative, but it’s his songs and their understatement and wry wit that have endured. The list of artists who’ve interpreted Allison is immense and impressive, from rockers like The Who and The Clash to blues icons John Mayall and Paul Butterfield, to Diana Krall and her more-famous husband, Elvis Costello. “I consider it flattery when anybody does one of your songs,” Allison says. “I don’t care what they do with it, because I do what I want with other songs. Actually, I like most of the unusual interpretations. I figure anybody should do what they want with a song, as long as they designate the composer.”

For his Jack Singer Concert Hall appearance, Allison will be backed by Edmonton’s premier rhythm section: bassist Mike Lent and drummer Sandro Dominelli. The following night, they play the Elks Lodge in Red Deer.

“There’s a lot of gigs in the last 57 years, and the average gig is still just like it was when I started playing,” Allison says. “You’ve got the same challenge every night — to try to make the music happen — and that’s something that takes concentration and focus. It’s a challenge every night. Sometimes it goes easy, sometimes it goes hard…. I’ve been doing the same material, pretty much, through the years. I used to be regarded as a cynic and now I’m regarded as a comedian.”