Louis Hardin was born May 26, 1916, and so was only 83 when he died. His Columbia Recordings were made in the late 60s, early 70s, but before that, he had recorded on labels such as Prestige and Epic. I didn't find anything about Julliard in any of his biographies--but he had studied music at the Iowa School for the Blind, came to New York City, and hung around folks from the New York Philharmonic.

I've tried to sing his rounds. His works are amazing--they strictly follow rules of composition and are chaconnes and canons and rounds, except that they are in rhythms like 5/4 or have unusual numbers of measures in each line. "Bird's Lament (in memory of Charlie Parker)" was a regular filler tune between stories on NPR's All Things Considered. I recently got his most recent album, "Sax Pax for a Sax" (Atlantic 83069-2) and became enamored with many of the compositions on it. This past week, I've been fascinated by "Sandalwood," a fugue in 5/4, and "Fiesta" a piano piece whose rhythm is still defying my analysis...

I was first introduced to him in my prep-school days back in 1969 or 1970 by a Norwegian-American dorm-mate who had discovered Moondog's "Nordic principles" [as a street musician, he dressed up in Viking garb, with robes and samndals and spear and Viking-horned hat--sort of like Hagar the Horrible of the comics come to life]. He put on the record of this street poet/musician, and I heard symphonic constructions that just blew my mind.

It was only a few weeks ago that I finally acquired CD "reprints" of those Columbia albums--Moondog, which has his symphonic works, and Moondog 2, which presents 26 of his rounds. They were very different sorts of vinyl LP recordings, but they're both on the same CD.

One of the most truly unique individuals of the world is gone!

--Charlie Baum