Moondog is an album by the American composer Moondog, released by Columbia Masterworks Records on October 1, 1969. The album was made on the initiative of the producer James William Guercio and recorded at Columbia's main studio with Moondog conducting 50 musicians. It consists of compositions written by Moondog in the 1950s and 1960s as he moved from jazz conventions into becoming a classical composer, resulting in a combination of classical influences and elements of what critics have described as minimalist music and third stream. The album includes short symphonic-styled works, canons, chaconnes and a couple of jazz-inspired tracks, one in memory of Charlie Parker.
Moondog received considerable media exposure and positive reviews. It peaked as number six on the Billboard chart for classical music. Moondog was regarded as an eccentric, known for standing at a street corner in New York dressed in a homemade Viking costume, and the album contributed significantly to his reputation as a serious composer.
Background
Louis Hardin (1916 – 1999) was a blind composer and musician who was born in Kansas as the son of a priest, moved to New York City in 1943 and took the name Moondog in 1947. From the late 1940s until 1974, he was known as an eccentric figure in New York's street life, standing at a street corner selling his music and writings or performing his own music. He received some attention from journalists and musicians and made a series of recordings from 1949 to 1957, including the live EP On the Streets of New York (1953) and four studio albums: (1953), released by Epic Records, and Moondog (1956), (1956) and (1957), released by Prestige Records. In the 1960s he developed his image and worldview: he dressed in a homemade Viking-inspired costume, was a neopagan who believed in the Norse gods and set up an altar at his country retreat in Candor. He moved away from the jazz idiom of his early works and toward being a classical composer. By the late 1960s he praised classicism and rejected the belief that there is such a thing as originality.
In 1969, Moondog was approached by James William Guercio, who was the producer of the bands Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears, accompanied by a representative from Columbia Records. Guercio had met Moondog a couple of years previously, admired his work and persuaded Columbia to let him produce a Moondog album. Moondog signed a contract for two albums with Columbia on March 6, 1969. The terms included that the record company's executives were not allowed to hear the music ahead of recording.
Composition and recording
The music on Moondog was composed in the 1950s and early 1960s and rescored for orchestra. Guercio and Al Brown, who functioned as Moondog's manager, co-produced the album and the latter put together an ensemble of 50 musicians. Few of Moondog's custom-made instruments were used; they had previously been among his more distinctive features. Only his percussion instrument the trimba and a new bowed instrument he called hus, from the Norwegian word for "house", were added to the conventional orchestra instruments.
Work on Moondog began in May and studio recording started on June 3, 1969, without any rehearsals. The album was recorded in Columbia's main studio Old Church on East 33rd Street, where Moondog conducted the orchestra. He described the opportunity to conduct the musicians in the studio as "one of the biggest thrills" of his life. Moondog was also a poet and recited two of his epigrams for the album. The first of these couplets is located between the first and second track and the second opens side two.
Music
Moondog begins with "Theme", a cross between or combination of chaconne and ground played in 5/4 time. Moondog described it as "my theme, a sort of musical signature". A previous version had been recorded for Moondog and His Friends where it appeared on the track "Theme and Variations". In the earlier version, Moondog played all instruments, whereas for the 1969 version it was reworked into a maxisym. Maxisym was Moondog's own term for a composition for a full orchestra; its opposite was a minisym, written for a handful of musicians.
"Stamping Ground" was written in the 1950s and not previously recorded. It takes inspiration from Native American music and is constructed with a canon melody line, a four-note ground played on timpani and a coda that ends in retardation.