The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing

The Song of a Sad Café: CAN YOU YEARN FOR A PLACE YOU’VE NEVER BEEN?

Moondog set up shop on the corner of 54th Street and Sixth Avenue dressed as a Viking,withahornedhelmetandspear,andstoodthereforthebetterpartofthree decades—day after day, whatever the weather, begging, making music, reading and selling his poetry. If this were all, it would still qualify as an achievement: a feat of endurance, the mark of some kind of genius. In a city known for constantly remaking itself, Moondog, through sheer persistence, achieved such iconic status that the New YorkTimesdedicatedatwo-columnarticletohismid-’60scostumechange(new pants, same Viking helmet, same spear). When he died in 1999, the Times obituarycalledhima “landmark.”ButwhilemostNewYorkersthoughtofhimasnothing more than an eccentrically dressed homeless man, he was recording albums of inventive, experimental music for labels like Prestige, Capitol, and Columbia, compositionsthatincludedelementsofEasternmelodictraditions,ofjazz,avantgarde ,andclassical,alongwithahealthydoseofstreetnoise:honks,whistles,traffic ,surf,andeverythingelsethegruntingcityhadtooffer.Hisadmirersincluded Charlie Parker and Philip Glass. Janis Joplin covered a Moondog tune—without permission.Insurelyoneoftheodderpairingsincontemporarymusic,Moondog teamedupwithJulieAndrewstorecordanalbumofMotherGoosesongs.Heonce sharedabillwithCharlesMingus.Whenconventionalinstrumentscouldn’tmake the sounds he imagined, he invented his own: bizarre contraptions with names likethetrimba,theyukh,theoo.Hiscomposition“MoondogSymphony”wasused by Alan Freed, the legendary disc jockey credited with popularizing rock & roll. Freedwasevenknownforawhileasthe“KingoftheMoondoggers”andhisradio showwascalled“TheMoondogShow”—thatis,untilourMoondogsuedhimand won.ThestorygoesthatIgorStravinskycalledthejudgeandspokeonMoondog’s behalf:“Takecareofthisman,”thefamedRussiancomposersaid.“He’saserious composer. Do him right.” WhenMoondogdisappearedfromtheNewYorkstreetsin1974,manycityresidentsprobablyassumedhehaddied .Infact,hehadembarkedonthenextlegofhis adventurouslife.HeleftNewYorktoplayadateinGermany,anddidn’tcomeback for fifteen years. He made a home there, with a woman thirty-five years his junior namedIlonaGoebelwhomanagedhiscareer,transcribedhismusic,andfinallyconvincedhimtoabandonhisVikingcostumeformoreconventionalattire .Hiscompositions were performed all over Europe to wide acclaim, and he conducted orchestrasinGermanyandFrance.AndMoondogcontinuedtowritemusicjustas hehadduringhisyearsonthestreets,butnowintherelativestabilityandcomfort oftheGoebelhome.WhilehisNewYorkcompositionswerenecessarilybrief,never morethanthreeorfourminutes,nowhehadthetranquilitytoworkonalargerscale. He immersed himself in many projects. Always grandiose, always ambitious, the formerVikingofSixthAvenue,whohaddescribedhimselfduringhisNewYorkyears as “a European in exile,” wrote a series of eight canons called Cosmos I and II that 382 THE OXFORD AMERICAN 1SMIRNOFF_pages.qxd 8/27/08 10:43 AM Page 382 would have required nine hours and a thousand players. He returned to New York in 1989, as an invited guest, and conducted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra. When he died, he left behind a musical legacy comprising dozens of albums, over three hundred compositions that include madrigals, organ and piano pieces, and overeightysymphonies. It’s wonderful now and then to stumble upon music that is unclassifiable. That borrowsshamelessly,transformsmercilessly,mutating,mixing,fusingdisparate genres until sparks fly and something unsettling happens. You can go on and on aboutthisman’sstrange,fragmentedlife—onthestreetsofNewYork,intheconcert halls of Europe, in recording studios everywhere, his glancing encounters withthemusicalroyaltyofhistime—butthisdoesn’tadequatelyaddressthedisconcerting beauty of the music itself. Individual compositions have an impact, but what can you say about the collected compositions of Moondog? The syncopated madness of his rhythmic compositions; his distilled, stylized interpretations of free jazz; his urban tone poems, his spoken-word koans over lilting Eastern melodies—what would you call his typical composition? Ifyoutakethemanathisword,hismusicalprojectwasthepursuitofcorrect counterpoint. Whatever he was creating rhythmically, in terms of harmony, he was a throwback. He saw himself as improving on Bach. Counterpoint, in the Moondog style, works this way: increasing complexity, layers upon layers, until youhearsomewhereinthefardistanceahintofarepeatedtheme—buthereand now, on the surface, there is something new, there is texture, and intuitively you are aware that you’ve arrived at a new place. In the best work there is rising tension , even anxiety, a feeling that the music itself cannot withstand the weight of another voice, and yet there it is—and then another, and another. Andstillcounterpointis,whencoupledwithstricttonality,somewhatrigid. Ininterviews,Moondogspokeoftenof“correct”counterpoint.HechidedHaydn, Beethoven, and Bach for their “mistakes,” and evinced a similar intolerance toward jazz musicians, and for the very idea of improvisations. No matter what you think you are hearing, Moondog is not a free spirit. All that seeming chaos, thatstreetchatter,thehonkinghorns,thoseunconventionalsounds—noneofit is left to chance. In interviews he comes off as a purist, even a control freak. Not exactlywhatyouwouldexpectfromamanwhonamedhimselfafterapethewas particularly fond of. Or from a man who dressed as a Viking and stood on New York’s Sixth Avenue for nearly three decades. From a man who, given the choice between renting a room to live in or paying to have his music transcribed from braille into musical notation, more often than not, chose the latter. Asked about his place in the avant-garde music scene in a 1998 interview, Moondog said, “I’m strictly tonal, so I feel kind of lonely.” And where was correct tonality being practiced these days? BOOK OF GREAT MUSIC WRITING 383 1SMIRNOFF_pages.qxd 8/27/08 10:43 AM Page 383 “Pop music.” ButthereisnothingpopaboutMoondog,nothingpopaboutwearingViking regaliaforthirtyyears,nothingpopaboutanine-hourcanonforathousandmusicians . For all the rebellion his public persona implied, there was an asceticism to...