courtesy of Naxos of America
This past Friday Cantaloupe Music released what was probably conceived as a tribute album, entitled Songs and Symphoniques: The Music of Moondog. For those of us that spent much of our time in New York City during the Sixties, Moondog was a somewhat mind-boggling eccentric who came to be known as “the Viking of Sixth Avenue,” since he would stake out a block on that street in midtown Manhattan wearing a cloak and horned helmet. I first learned about him from Gordon Mumma, one of the musicians in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company; and he also had an impact on both Philip Glass and Steve Reich. One of Mumma’s colleagues, David Behrman, had a “day job” with Columbia Records, which led to an album of Moondog’s music performed by a pickup ensemble.
Over half a century has elapsed since the Columbia Moondog album was released. Those of us that encountered him on Sixth Avenue or had fun listening to that album have probably dwindled in our numbers significantly. However, my guess is that, among “we happy few,” there is not likely to be much of a positive response to the Cantaloupe release. I suspect there were any number of critics that argued that Columbia had not been true to either Moondog’s ideas or his approaches to performances. To those of them that are still with us, I say, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”
The team behind Songs and Symphoniques, which includes the Brooklyn-based Ghost Train Orchestra, the Kronos Quartet, and a bevy of vocalists, probably from a few different generations, never really “get” the Moondog spirit; and, in the absence of spirit, the flesh should be left to decay in some distant desert where only the elements are in control.
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