Moondance

[Morry]

Anyone know of a sax player who has done a version of Van Morrison's "Moondance"? I heard a jazz vocalist doing it on XM jazz radio this afternoon, and I thought what a cool sax piece it would make.

[hannibal]

I play it every once in awhile. It's easy enough to pick up form the original Van Morrison CD. But never heard anyone play this song at a gig.

[Frank D]

Maybe it's just me, but I've grown sick of hearing Moondance. It was cool when it first came out, but it's come to be the cliche song played by jazz guys who want to show that they're "down with the kid's music" even though the tune is now 30 years old.

[SonnyMurphy]

the original Van Morrison version features Michael Brecker on the sax solo...

[hannibal]

cool. didn't know that. 8)

[Tharruff]

Sonny,

Are you sure about that ? Number one...the person is playing an Alto...number 2 it doesn't sound like Mike Brecker AT ALL.

I think that I read somewhere that Van Morrison is actually an amateur sax player and I also think that I read that he overdubbed the solo himself.

I don't have an album to look at to check the credits. Probably someone else who posts does though...

I'm curious now.

[hannibal]

Have the greatest hits album but that's no help in liner notes. Van Morrison lives about 1 hour from me and I could always knock on his door and ask him I suppose....

[Frank D]

It's Van.

[SonnyMurphy]

My apologies! I've been a bonehead - its got to be either Van or the two other guys listed on the sax credits...I still thought it was a tenor, maybe Colin Tilton but I could be wrong.
Realize that I'm mixing up the tenor solo on Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight off of James Taylor's One Man Dog...that IS Brecker.
thanks guys.

[jazzbluescat]

the original Van Morrison version features Michael Brecker on the sax solo...

Brecker might have done it, but, and I may be wrong, I think Jack Schorer(sp)did the original. Jack was Morrison's sax/musical director during the Moondance and Brown-eyed Girl era. Colin and Jack were in the group together for a short time. Jack stayed for several years.

[pfox]

And Van is no amateur sax player, either. He started his career in music playing the alto in local Belfast rock and RnB groups. He was known at the time for being a wild man on the sax, playing while sitting on someone else's shoulders, doing the splits, etc. He is one of the few popular musicians today who really knows and appreciates a good arrangement for saxes on his songs. I believe he writes some of the arrangements himself, but check the liner notes. The man uses a lot of horns. Jack Schroer was probably responsible for the memorable sax sounds of the whole Moondance album.

[keithsy]

I just want the solo interlude between the 2nd and 3rd stanzas.

[JL]

I play Moondance once in awhile as an instrumental. It's a fun tune to play on the horn. As hannibal said, it's fairly easy to pick up off of Van's vocal version. I don't play it too often, but it's good to have if someone requests a Van Morrison tune. Also, you'll sometimes have the pleasure of running into a singer who wants to sit in and sing it. So you might as well be ready to play it.

[whitetrane]

For what its worth, Johnny Rogan's excellent biography of Van "No Surrender" says that Van originally wrote Moondance as an instrumental for soprano sax...

[tenor71363]

This tune's in F minor, correct? Good saxophone key.

[whaler]

The last time at a gig that someone requested Moondance I tried to get the band, mostly the drummer, to play it like one of those "late" Coltrane recordings with Rashied Ali. I was thinking, "They will never ask for this tune again!". The only problem was that they liked it.
I've played a nice big band arrangement that was done for Michael Buble that would work just as well, if not better, as a sax feature instead of a vocalist.
Actually the first time I saw Buble on tv I thought somebody was pulling my leg and that they were stealing Joe Piscopo's act.

[shotgun]

I play this piece pretty regularly in concert A minor. I've tried to get rid of it because it's just so overdone around here but the vocalist says we've got to keep it. It's fun, though, and it lays well under the fingers. Sometimes I'll quote the "Habanera" aria from Carmen in the "A" section.

[Bill Mecca]

I've recorded it as an instrumental for a friend. She liked it.

[themacintrasher]

It's only two chords, I think.

[Baphomet]

I saw Van in concert just last month, something I've wanted to do for years, and he played a TON of alto. Kind of a stange tone, but not to shabby of a player.

[MartinMusicMan]

It's only two chords, I think.It's 5 chords for what I think of as the standard version. The minimum would be 4 to do basic changes. I play it with 6 or more (with substitutions). You want to keep it simple, though, to keep the groove.

[John Laughter]

http://saxsolos.com/
then
http://saxsolos.com/ByTune.html

[JL]

This tune's in F minor, correct? Good saxophone key.

You could play it in any key, but most people play it in the original key: A minor.

[Al Stevens]

I'll have to duck after saying this, but to me the tune is too boring to be played without vocal lyrics. And with lyrics it's too boring to play very often.

[Pete Thomas]

to me the tune is too boring to be played without vocal lyrics.

It depends on how you play it I think. I find that many apparently boring tunes make a great vehicle for expressive playing.

[harmonizerNJ]

Al, what if your choice is between playing "Moondance" or "Brown Eyed Girl"?

[Al Stevens]

Al, what if your choice is between playing "Moondance" or "Brown Eyed Girl"?

That's funny. Thanks for the chuckle.

There's another thread where members list their 5 favorite standard tunes.

http://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?t=56828&highlight=standards

It got to be one of those "hipper than thou" threads in which each poster tried to out-cool the others by listing hipper tunes. So, just to be different I listed my five least favorite tunes that I have to play sometimes. Five of the least hip tunes you can think of. No one even commented. Of course, they weren't commenting on each other's hip lists either. But, the point of this is that neither Moondance nor Brown Eyed Girl made my list. But they should have.

[Dan Forshaw]

Having moved to Belfast last summer and doing the usual function / soul band rounds every gig has a 'two van minimum' and sometimes you can be playing a whole set of his stuff.....:S

He's also got a reputation for been a total ****** to work with

[MartinMusicMan]

It depends on how you play it I think. I find that many apparently boring tunes make a great vehicle for expressive playing.
Moondance is a very open song. The verse is a 2 chord vamp (Am - Bm) so you can go almost anywhere with it and make it as unboring as you like. Then it brings in the iv-m chord and gives structure to the phrasing, and resolves to the V chord. It's easy to follow, but as complex as you wanna make it.

I certainly understand getting tired of Moondance and Brown Eyed Girl. But Van's songs are so good for horns because he is a horn player. He writes, arranges, and sings like a horn player. You can tell that what he hears in his head is R&B horn.

[tanbark813]

Moondance is a very open song.

I agree with this. I love the song, personally, and especially like doing it because I sing and play sax on it. :)

I've done one version where we added a second solo section that included some scatting.

At a gig last week with one guitar player and one bass player, the guitar player just snapped the whole time. It sounds like it would be too empty but it made it seem really jazzy. Plus the gig was at a wine bar and they didn't want us to get to loud anyway. It went over really well with the audience.

[MartinMusicMan]

He's also got a reputation for been a total ****** to work with
I also heard from a guy who worked with him that he was perfectly fine. The thing is that Van knows exactly what he wants and he expects the people he works with to be top level pros - you have to cut it NOW, not work it out later.

[Dan Forshaw]

maybe it's just the Norn Irish culture