Moondog — Lost Street Performances and Recordings

Moondog was one of the most extraordinary figures in 20th-century American music. Blinded at age 16 by a dynamite cap, he moved to New York City in 1943 and by the late 1940s had become a fixture on the streets of midtown Manhattan, standing motionless for hours in a Viking-inspired cloak and horned helmet. Far from being a mere eccentric, Moondog was a sophisticated composer whose work blended counterpoint, Native American rhythms, and street sounds into a unique idiom. Leonard Bernstein, Arturo Toscanini, Charlie Parker, and Philip Glass all admired his music. His studio recordings — for Prestige, Epic, Columbia, and later European labels — reveal a brilliant mind working with canons, rounds, and self-invented time signatures. But these recordings represent a fraction of his output. Every day for nearly three decades, Moondog performed for hours on the sidewalk, playing trimba (a triangular percussion instrument he invented), oo (a stringed instrument), and other self-made devices. He composed constantly, carrying thick notebooks of handwritten scores. Some of these notebooks survived; many were lost, stolen, or damaged during his years of homelessness. The street performances — improvisations, new compositions, and works-in-progress — were heard by thousands of passersby but recorded by almost none.