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We recently connected with Mo Egeston and have shared our conversation below.Hi Mo, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love it if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
Well I’ve been told it’s an Egeston family trait to take pride in and be grateful for whatever work you’re doing. And to give that work every single thing you can. I’ve also been told that I am well on my way to continuing this tradition.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’ve worked as a musician and educator in the St. Louis area since the mid 1990s. After getting my Masters degree in Piano Performance- Chamber Music and Accompanying I began working as a pianist, bandleader and educator in both private studio and classroom scenarios.
My current creative vehicle is my band Mo Egeston All-Stars (AKA Mo E All-Stars) which blends elements of jazz fusion, soul, Latin and dance music inspired grooves. The band features original music, collaborations with other artists including AhSa-Ti Nu and my arrangements and interpretations of classic and contemporary soul, pop, r&b and jazz.
With the All-Stars I have spent a good amount of time holding down residencies at area venues past and present including former venues The Delmar Lounge and Lola. From 2017 until the Covid era I hosted Late Night Grooves on Saturdays at the Dark Room which was developed out of my residency (inaugural class) with the Kranzberg Arts Foundation.
These days, the band continues to be a source of true joy. It gives a voice to my creative vision which is vital to my happiness but equally I’ve been lucky to work with some truly great people along the way. I’ve collaborated with percussionist Duane “Jingo” Williams for 15 years in various versions of this project which also features bass player Eric “Snoopy” Tyler and drummer Andrew Gibson who took over for longtime drummer Grover Stewart after he moved.
I also run my own Mo Egeston Piano Studio and have been an instructor at Teipen Performing Arts for many years. Along with my work as a piano teacher, which is a 5-6 day a week endeavor, I accompany student recitals and festivals which allows me to stay in touch with my classical music roots.
The newest component to my piano career is my work at St. John’s UCC on North Grand. I did not grow up playing in church but I’m grateful to have found a community that I’m proud to support musically. Along with the great people I’ve met there, many members of the music team (anchored by drummer Andrew Gibson) also collaborate with me in the Mo Egeston All-Stars. Recently we had a really great show at Music at the Intersection i(September 2023) where I was able to feature vocalists Nikki Ellis, Michelle Higgins, (both of whom I met at St. John’s) artist AhSa-Ti Nu and St. Louis favorite Robert Nelson.
We will be continuing these collaborations in 2024 including February 17 with AhSa-Ti Nu at Blue Strawberry. And new music is in the works which will eventually lead to some recording.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
How this looks will be different in all pursuits but having experts in any field guide you and share their wisdom and skills is essential in my opinion. Understanding that there is always someone who knows more than you and is frankly much better than you is vital. So the first component that served me well is a hunger for knowledge. School is not a necessary path for all, but my training as a pianist through my Masters has proved to be essential to my career. Even though I did not pursue the path I originally planned as a full time college professor I use the broad skills I developed especially in graduate school on a daily basis. I of course use these skills directly as a pianist and educator but the necessary discipline to complete my studies also laid the foundation for what I’ve been able to do as a self employed musician.
Although I have certainly not been perfect in this regard a second vital component is how you interact with your colleagues and people that work for you. I think the network of people I’ve worked with throughout my career is one of my biggest strengths. Be kind and professional to the people in your career orbit and they will support you.
And finally not everyone can lead but someone has to. I was an accidental leader very early in my career. While definitely not the original plan I realize now that I was fortunate to be the organizing factor behind some very talented groups of people. And I am still learning from the many mistakes I’ve made along the way. But I also grew to accept that leading was something I could do, so when it came time to start leading groups under my name, I had skills in place that allowed me to move forward. This is especially helpful in today’s do it yourself world.
What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?
Along with providing a great home, my parents were both in education. Mom really loved to read and in Dad’s case I believe he was the first of his siblings to get a college degree. It’s because of them, both as models to emulate and how they leaned on me to do my best, that I love learning to this day.
Mo Egeston's Debut CD Was a Long Time Coming
By Thomas Crone
MO E ALL-STARS ALBUM RELEASE
5 p.m. Sunday, August 27. The Dark Room, 3610 Grandel Square. Free. 314-776-9550
As much as anyone, Maurice "Mo E" Egeston had an active role in creating the music culture of Washington Avenue in the mid to late 1990s and early aughts. At the time, the club scene there was a rich mix — not perfect, of course, but possessing both live music and DJ cultures, with a clientele that crossed a lot of demographic lines. For a handful of years, on a handful of blocks, something special was happening on Wash Ave, with Egeston often onstage, working behind the scenes or simply part of the audience.
These days, it's a different musical community downtown, but Egeston's still in the mix, though his view is largely that of a resident, not a performer. Living on the top floor of a converted warehouse, Egeston says that as he walks around the corner for his daily coffee, he thinks, "Oh, that club used to be there. And that other club was here." The flipside of nostalgia? "Moments when you can't remember what was where."
At different points in time, Egeston was active in Urban Jazz Naturals, Vargas Swing, its offshoot Vargas, Invincible Groov ("with no 'e,' because the '90s"), Soul Alliance, Coco & Mo, Brothers Lazaroff and his long-running partnership with horn player Dawn Weber — "Mo & Dawn, a working duo that played lounges and restaurants and continued with what we were doing with Vargas and Urban Jazz Naturals."
He recalls that time fondly.
"That era is what really sucked me into electronic music, in general," he says. "This was before you saw VIP lines and valets on Washington Avenue. There was kind of a crew, like what's on Cherokee now, just playing a different kind of music. It felt like a community for sure, and definitely felt like the coolest thing in town. At least we thought so.
"It was a DJ-driven thing, but at the same time, you had bands like Zhivegas, Son of Starchild, Sky Bop Fly... these six- to eight-piece bands that were making money and able to stay together and tour by playing live music. DJ culture was big, but support for live music was there. Besides the raw fun of it, it was just a community of kinda kooky people, many of whom have remained my friends. Crazy to think that was more than twenty years ago, maybe more."
"This is a nice blueprint of what we can do," Egeston says of the CD.
Throughout the years, Egeston's been able to incorporate gigs played for cash with others that have a bit more of his heart and soul invested; he also maintains an active teaching schedule, with exactly 41 students at last count, including both kids and adults.
These days, Egeston's finding his creative outlet as an instrumentalist and bandleader, offering up a new CD by his group the Mo E All-Stars, which features the eponymous leader on keys and composition, Duane "Jingo" Williams on percussion, Eric "Snoopy" Tyler on bass and the ever-in-demand Grover Stewart Jr. behind the kit. Along with the contributions of producer/recording engineer Jason McEntire, the band is releasing Groove Suites Vol. 1, an eight-song, all-instrumental album that Egeston suggests was a long time coming.
"So I've been writing since Urban Jazz Naturals," he says. "Writing, rearranging, taking other people's ideas and remixing. I was somewhat burned out, because I came from a time when we were still making physical products and moved into a time when the industry was transitioning away from physical products. A lot of writing came when I was playing at the Delmar; I just never got over that hump of putting my own stuff out, but knew I had to get an album out at some point. When Snoopy arrived, it really balanced things out and I started thinking seriously about getting things ready to record. And it felt really good to get it down."
Egeston has a hard time defining the album without "lots of words." He says, "It's basically soulful, jazz-influenced. Some funk and Latin in there. The underlying thing is the different dance grooves, with jazz, funk and soul mixed in with old-school house, drum and bass, down-tempo beats."
After initially laying down a marathon live session on November 16, Egeston returned to Sawhorse Studios on an as-needed basis, while also laying down tracks at his loft. In time, McEntire signed on to mix and master as well as record, a process that Egeston says was perfect: "Our dynamics are best captured live, but a live recording at a show fell apart, so we wanted to capture something as close as possible to that. We burned through all the tracks in one day. After that, I played Rhodes and top-board synths and overdubbed a lot of my stuff. I always made demos work for various things, created beats. Doing work in the 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. range has traditionally been my strength, so I'd record bits late at night and send them his way. It was nice, having the flexibility to do both."
The process made him think that the next album could come a lot sooner, featuring much of the same personnel.
"I do, I do," he says, when asked if thinks there's another album on the horizon. "This is a nice blueprint of we can do; it really showcases the players. Yeah, it's been a process, but I'm definitely pleased and it's put me back into a place of wanting to keep writing."
On (almost) every Saturday, Egeston hosts "Late Night Grooves" at Grand Center's Dark Room, a place that allows him to workshop material constantly. He's also wants to incorporate some new, young voices into his projects going forward, as well as working with his generational compadres.
"Paige Alyssa will be on the release gig," he says. "Charlie Cerpa will be playing with us in a couple of weeks. I want to keep those sorts of things in mind. It's not just about wanting to work with twentysomethings. But when we work on something original or even with songs that we're covering or reinterpreting, they'll pull on things from my own youth that I've put aside; it makes me remember that that music was actually really good.
"With the next project, we'll have some vocalists as guests, and I want to interact with some young folks, for sure; I don't pretend like I'm young any more. I definitely appreciate what's going on today and want some nice creativity to go on with the younger set."
“Brothers Lazaroff Give 'Em What They Need (self-released) By Christian Schaeffer Thursday, Dec 2 2010 Give 'Em What They Need is the third record by Brothers Lazaroff, and with each release Jeff and David Lazaroff add more soul and more brave experimentation to their rootsy music. Credit the Brothers' instrumentalists — bassist Teddy Brookins, drummer Grover Stewart and keyboardist Mo Egeston — who make their recording debut on this album. Each musician brings a malleable but distinct flavor to the group, especially Egeston. A long-time vet of this city's funk and electro scenes, he adds immense color and texture to these songs, often in unexpected places. His churning Hammond organ chops are fairly straight-forward on the twangy, rambling "Run with the Horses," but the light, airy analog synth line that hovers overhead adds the right amount of spacey ambiance. Later, on "Feels So Nice," his harmonic intervals on the Wurlitzer electric piano gently punctuate the loping rhythm and meditative vocals.” - Christian Schaeffer