Moondog

I was introduced to the music of Moondog (Louis T. Hardin May 26, 1916 - September 8, 1999) in the early 90s by a friend and fellow unusual music fan, Pierre M. "You have to hear this music!" he said, "You're going to love it". The two lps he loaned me were the Columbia releases: Moondog and Moondog 2 . It took the time to get halfway through one side before I decided I needed to find my own copies. The sounds were a surprising mix of jazz, large scale orchestral works on the first album and medieval madrigals on the latter, with Moondog's invented percussion instruments providing unity.

The next LP I heard was an earlier (1956) self-titled album on the Prestige label [Prestige OJC-1741]. This one has proved to be my favourite with smaller-scale works of great charm.

From the liner notes by Robert S Altshuler:

"A vast amount of the world's music is part of Moondog's working vocabulary. This reservoir of material serves his eclectic approach to composition. Moondog chooses deftly amongst all of music to elicit his surprising couplings. A pair of violins bowing Bach influenced counterpoint might be heard over a rhythmic pattern of Cuban drumming. The ability to find unexpectedly complementary areas of music is an essential ingredient in these miniature portraits of life's many parts".

Which brings me to a terrific double CD entitled Rare Material [Roof Music]. If you are new to Moondog's music, this may be the best place to start as it covers the scope of his vision: swinging jazz, pipe organ compositions, formal orchestral pieces, and the very impressive "Invocation" which Urban Sax ought to perform and if they haven't already I don't know what the hell is wrong with them. On top of that, a couple of tracks from the aforementioned Prestige release are included: "Frog Bog" and "Surf Session".

I'd also like to take this opportunity to plug a forthcoming biography by Robert Scotto entitled Moondog: The Viking of Sixth Avenue The Authorized Biography.
This one is on my to-buy list, that's a certainty.

To round out the post, here's Mr Scruff's video for "Get a Move On", a track from his Keep it Unreal release. The basis for the tune is an extensive and uncredited sample of Moondog's Lament 1 (Bird's Lament). It's a fun tune all the same. Enjoy!