For three decades beginning in the early 1940s, New Yorkers were often bemused by the sight and sounds of a tall, long-haired bearded, blind and seemingly vagrant musician playing original tunes and reciting original poetry on a few midtown Manhattan street corners. A devotee of Norse mythology, he was sometimes known to sport a replica viking helmet, and maintained a shrine to Thor.
Yet Moondog, the name Louis Thomas Hardin (1916–1999) gave himself after an old family canine that howled loudly at Luna, was much more than a freak. He was a serious and mostly self-taught composer (using Braille), theorist, instrument maker and more. Soon, Moondog’s offbeat yet strangely appealing music began attracting fans from the jazz and classical worlds, eventually leading to record deals and a deserved reputation as a pioneer of postmodern classical music. No less than Philip Glass and Steve Reich later credited him as an important early influence on minimalism.
And unique though it is, that actual music hardly matches Moondog’s bizarre rep. Mingling elements of classical, jazz, minimalism, even Native American sounds, much of it can be tight, tuneful, even, dare I say it, catchy. Some wound up in commercials and film soundtracks; one song was covered by Janis Joplin. Much of the music on his most popular album, Sax Pax for a Sax, is tuneful, concise, even sweet, as the composer himself was said to be. It’s an ideal intro for Moondog newbies. And you can experience it live on Friday, March 7 when Portland’s own stellar all-femme jazz saxophone quartet, Quadraphonnes, abetted by a dozen other musicians, perform Moondog’s saxy music at Alberta Rose Theatre.
Street Corner Savant
Though he arrived in early ‘40s New York with no connections and little cash, the blind street performer soon impressed passing musicians leaving Carnegie Hall, who invited him to sit in on New York Philharmonic rehearsals. For years, he paid the bills by selling copies of his music, records, poetry and tracts. Moondog also became a Beat fave and performed poetry with Allen Ginsberg. Yet he continued his street performances, on self-made instruments, even though he was also appearing on talk shows and in the press.
Moondog has been fairly legendary among contemporary classical fans since the 1970s, because so much of that music has roots in the downtown NYC scene that birthed him and the original minimalists. But I didn’t realize how strong his connection was to jazz. One of his prime performance spots was on the famous 52nd Street, near some jazz’s most legendary nightclubs, where he crossed paths with many of the stars of the time like Benny Goodman and Charlie Parker, who died before he could record with Moondog as he’d hoped.
Some of his mid-’50s records came out on Prestige, which around the same time also issued multitudinous records by Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and so many other bop and post-bop legends. Later, as his renown grew, Moondog, like Davis, was picked up by the biggest label, Columbia.
Of course, jazz and classical music have flirted from the beginning, with advances from both sides, including the midcentury Third Stream experiments happening around the time Moondog hit the scene. But he really came in through a kind of side door that no one else had opened. Still, Moondog was too controlling a composer to allow for that jazz sine qua non, improvisation, which could interfere with his tunes’ intricate contrapuntal complexity, Quadraphonnes’ Bruggeman says, and they’ll play his music straight at the concert.
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In the 1970s, Moondog moved to Europe, where he found support for his singular artistic vision. He ultimately made a few studio recordings, wrote symphonies (81 of them!), chamber music, solo organ and piano works, songs, meditation music, and more. A few years before he died in 1999, he moved back to New York, where he was by then revered as a returning prophet of modern music.
Moondog was also what they called then a “peacenik,” that is, one of those crazies who dared advocate for non violence over the alternative. “Work for peace,” he wrote in Hymn To Peace, “and peace will work for you.” Sadly, that stance was countercultural in Vietnam-era America as it is today — but is right in line with Portland.
Moondog couldn’t stop the war, but in his own field of music, could make one artistic statement: he wanted to liberate the saxophone (which became an instrument of artistic freedom for African Americans when jazz arose) from its origins as a 19th century military band instrument, where its strident sound could rally the troops. Hence his acclaimed and accessible early 1990s album Sax Pax for a Sax — packs (that is, ensembles) of saxophones, deployed in the service of peace, which reached number 22 on the Billboard album sales charts.
Sax Appeal
It’s easy to hear jazz influences on that record, and not just on the chaconne “Present for the Prez” and “Bird’s Lament,” dedicated to the immortal jazz saxophonists Lester (Prez) Young and Charlie (“Bird” or “Yardbird”) Parker. Though everything is strictly written out, and often uses classical forms (especially canons, think “row row row your boat”), some sound like big band swing, others reminiscent of early American tunes.
On several cuts, a steady pulse harkens back to the Native American drums he heard as a child in Wyoming and reconnected with later. Sometimes he feels closer to, say, early Sun Ra than to other American classical mavericks like Harry Partch or Conlon Nancarrow, though he shares all their affinities for the fringes over the mainstream.
Bruggeman had been intrigued by Moondog’s music since getting a taste of it on the modern version of a mixtape: a collection of oddball jazz compiled by her brother in law. Her interest was rekindled by bandmate Mary-Sue Tobin, who shared her interest and suggested checking out Moondog’s music as possible Quadraphonnic fodder.
She read the authorized biography, checked the authorized website, but Bruggeman couldn’t find any sheet music, because it turned it out little had been published. Then she found Sax Pax for a Sax and “I listened to it — boom!” she remembers. “It seemed very simple at first, like a folk melody that seems familiar, with a little bit of whimsy that I adore. Then you start to hear different textures and keep peeling away more and more layers. He really tested the boundaries: ‘How many canons can I write for and make all this counterpoint and still stay within the realm and rules of canons?’ A lot of thought went into making it sound so simple.”
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And it matched Quadraphonnes’ own longstanding dual interests in classical music (their earliest shows featured music by Glass and string quartet arrangements) and jazz, which they’re best known for now.
“We are a quartet that likes to do a variety of styles of music,” Bruggeman explains. “It’s always been challenging for the saxophones to get a foothold in the chamber music realm. The fact that there is this composer trying to combine these worlds — classical and jazz — through saxophones was perfect for us. It’s nice to see someone playing around with strict forms and the rules of composition, but also incorporating syncopated melodies into the mix.”
Inspired, Bruggeman tracked down other saxophonists who had bootleg copies of his music, then connected with the proprietor of the major Moondog fan site (cult following, yep), who in turn connected her with the lawyers for his estate, which controlled his creations. She expected to negotiate for performing rights and pay for it out of the grant (from Regional Arts & Culture Council and Portland Office of Arts & Culture) she’d received for the project. Instead, one day she received a zipped file containing unpublished scores she needed. Unlike some music biz greedheads, the estate just wanted to get his visionary music out to the world, and its representatives were delighted to help Quadraphonnes bring it to Portland.
Along with Bruggeman, Tobin and bandmates Chelsea Luker and Michelle Medler, the concert features eleven — count ‘em! — saxoholics, ranging from the lowest (contrabass) to highest (soprano) and all the rest in between, plus piano, percussion, and a vocal quartet who’ll also recite some of his concise couplets between songs. And thanks to that generous estate lawyer, the show will also offer a brief, exclusive glimpse into a long-in-the-making documentary about Moondog that may appear soon.
Moondog might have been a bit out there, even for 1960s NYC, but his genial weirdness totally vibes with 2020s PDX, which boasts its own unicycling bagpiper and all manner of other outré performers and creators. Fans of jazz, contemporary classical music, and unbounded indie creativity should check out of one our spiritual artistic ancestors.
Quadraphonnes & friends play Moondog’s Sax Pax for a Sax, 8 pm Friday, March 7, Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta Street, Portland. Tickets here.
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