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1SMIRNOFF_pages.qxd 8/27/08 10:43 AM Page 380 Moondog THERE IS JAZZ, CLASSICAL, AVANT-GARDE— AND MOONDOG by Daniel Alarcón ThemoreyoulearnaboutMoondog’slife,themoreyourownsuffersbycomparison . Whatever you might have done that you were proud of, those acts you had consideredinterestingorevenbrave—allthoseepisodesinyourlifeyouweresaving up, the anecdotes, the yarns to tell your wide-eyed grandkids: All this is so much hokum compared with the stories Moondog must have gathered up in his perplexing years on earth. His biography, even when told in broad strokes, is startling. Born in 1916 in Kansas,MoondogspentmuchofhischildhoodinWyoming,wherehisfatherwas anEpiscopalianminister,amissionarytotheNativeAmericantribesofthearea. Moondog lost his sight at age sixteen in a dynamite accident. At the Iowa School for the Blind he received his first training in composition, then lived in Missouri tostudybraille.In1936,theHardinfamilymovedtoArkansas,andMoondogspent a year studying at Arkansas College. They lived there for several years, in Moorefield, near Batesville, where Moondog was known for his long hair, his eccentric dress (even then, he was fond of capes), and his habit of walking alone along the train tracks between the two towns. He spent a year in Memphis as the privatestudentofBurnetTuthill,thedirectoroftheMemphisConservatory.The followingyear,1942,MoondogmovedtoNewYorkandwentdirectlytoCarnegie Hall, and was in the front row the day Leonard Bernstein made his conducting debut. For a time, Moondog was the only person allowed to hear the New York Philharmonic rehearse; apparently the temperamental conductor Artur Rodzinski viewed the blind, bearded Moondog as a good-luck charm, an amulet. 381 1SMIRNOFF_pages.qxd 8/27/08 10:43 AM Page 381 ...

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