Moondog: The enigmatic jazz wizard of post-war NYC

I came across Moon dog on one of those long and meandering trips through obscure music on YouTube.

He was a true innovator and an avante-garde enigma. For one he looked like Gandalf or Hagrid. Aside from this, he also invented several new musical instruments including a small triangular instrument he called the Ooo and another he called the Ooo-ya-tsu. The most well-known instrument he invented was the triangular percussive that he christened the Trimba.

Moondog’s music defies categorisation. It is strange, beautiful and mournful music that comes from a mystical realm, an ancient and long forgotten canon of a lost civilisation.

In this piece below, he gathered his inspiration from the sound of a NYC subway and a naval foghorn. You can hear the rhythmic shudder of a train or a strange post-apocalyptic air-ship.

Bird’s Lament by Moondog

Bird’s Lament by Moondog is one of his most well known and conventionally melodic jazz songs. You will no doubt recognise it, possibly subliminally. It’s the kind of haunting song that gets stuck in your soul. It reminds me of some kind of Raymond Chandler detective novel set in an American city. The song draws you in as though moving through a misty alleyway on a dark night. Best heard through good headphones.

About Moondog

Moondog was born in 1916 in Kansas as Louis Thomas Hardin. He was always musical and begun making musical instruments as a child of five. Following a farming accident as a boy he was left blind.

He attended many blind schools including the Iowa School of the Blind where he cultivated a love for music. He was also largely self-taught.

In 1943 he moved to New York City where he met leading lights of classical music and jazz such as Charlie Parker, Benny Goodman and Leonard Bernstein.

Moondog chose his name in honour of a dog that “howled at the moon more than any other dog I knew of”. He became legendary for his playing on street corners near 6th Avenue, between 52nd and 55th streets. He also donned a remarkably unique and magical cloak and horned helmet, often busking in this outfit, or simply standing there being silent.

He became known by locals as the Viking of 6th Avenue. Most people weren’t aware of his incredible musical talent and thought him to be a common vagrant.  

Although Moondog was never homeless, he had an apartment in upper Manhattan along with a country retreat in Candour NY.

He managed to support himself through the sales of his philosophy, poetry and music on the street.

He was a pagan and had rejected Christianity since his boyhood. His Viking garb was a nod of respect to Nordic mythology, he loved this throughout his life. In his county home in Candor he kept an altar to the god Thor.

Musical Influences

Moondog’s music is a mash-up of many musical influences. He once performed at a Native American Sun Dance in Idaho playing the percussion and flute.

His music blends together classical, contemporary jazz, ambient sounds from his environment such as babies crying, trains, ocean waves, along with the sounds the instruments he himself made.

In his autumn years, Moondog travelled to Germany where he lived in the 1970’s in Munster with his friends, the Sommers. There he composed lots of music.  He also toured in his later years throughout the US, France, Germany and Sweden.

This remarkable character Moondog died in Munster Germany in 1999 of heart failure and is immortalised by a statue in a cemetery there.

Here is his last performed concert and after this he shuffled off this mortal coil. I am sure you will agree it sounds pretty remarkable.

I hope you enjoyed this post and that you just discovered some cool music. Let me know what you think below…