Recording: Nexus Percussion

Artist: Nexus Percussion

Song: Wind River Powwow [composer: Moondog; arranged by Russell Hartenberger]

Recorded at The Music Gallery (Moondog 100), December 3, 2016.

Nexus Percussion - Wind River Powwow

Celebrating what would have been the one-hundredth birthday of Louis T. Hardin, the blind street performer better known as Moondog, this event invited two groups to reflect and refract his unique compositional sensibility. No mere busker, "The Viking of 6th Avenue" crossed paths with many of New York's musical legends, including Leonard Bernstein and Charlie Parker — and his friendship with Philip Glass and Steve Reich (plus his love of musical canons — "rounds" to row-your-boaters like me) cemented his status as a forerunner to minimalism. Longstanding percussion group Nexus, who have has worked extensively with composers like Reich, brought an entire suite of Moondog pieces (along with Suba Sankaran on vocals), looping through hypnotic lullabies and pastoral drifts.