Moondog

Elpmas ...

Louis Hardin, after living for decades on the streets of New York as Moondog, retired to Germany...  After being 'rediscovered' in his late 70s he produced this ...


Suite Equestria (Trail vs Road and Rail) (1992) ... 

"If some of my music sounds like Jazz of the "Swing" era, it is because Swing is North American in origin, coming right out of the drum beats and highly syncopated melodies of the Plains Indians, from the Arapaho to the Sioux. Their running-walking-running beats on the tomtom are fundamental to Jazz of the Swing era. I heard it for the first time, having been introduced to Arapaho Sun Dance music in Wyoming. I was about five years old. Chief Yellow Calf sat me on his lap and let me beat the buffalo-skin tomtom, an experience I never forgot. The Sun Dance drum beat stayed with me to the present day. I call it the Powwow beat. Later, in 1949, the Blackfoot Indians of Idaho let me beat their tomtom at the Sun Dance and invited me to play flute obligato to the chorus.

Those fast-slow-fast beats are to be heard on tracks 1 and 3, where the running beat goes right into the walking beat and vice versa.

My bass drum is hexagonal, my own design, sounding much like the tomtom." ... Moondog's Corner ...

Lots of Moondog info ...

Interview ...