Few musicians encapsulate the "different ways jazz can be played" more than Moondog (real name Louis Hardin). Born in 1916, Moondog is best known as the Viking of 6th Avenue, where he busked, or simply stood in silence, for much of his time between the late 40s and 1972. To passers by, he was a zany public figure dressed like a futuristic druid or Danish warrior, but to musicians and friends he was a composer of rare genius, one "who used to howl at the moon."
Blind from the age of 16, Moondog composed his music in braille and developed a singular approach to music, inventing new instruments and influencing many of the world's great musicians. Phillip Glass and Steve Reich took his work very seriously and appreciated it much more than what they were exposed to at Julliard.
By the mid-70s he had moved from NYC to Germany, where he experienced a period of fruitful composition. It is here that we join him, in 1996, in a show put together by the wonderfully inventive pianist Chick Corea in Stuttgart. With the famous Modern Jazz Quartet being the other act on the bill, Moondog delivers New Amsterdam and Shakespeare City alongside a small ensemble made up of members from the London Symphony Orchestra.
