Van Morrison – Moondance

Ten songs after Astral Weeks

With Moondance, Van Morrison gave his music a new shape in 1970. Following the expansive Astral Weeks, he assembled ten concise songs that bring rhythm and blues, jazz, folk and gospel together. They grew from a period living around Woodstock and were recorded in New York. Landscape and memory remain close at hand, now organised by the band into clearly defined verses, choruses and instrumental responses.

“And It Stoned Me” begins with a recollection. Water, weather and an everyday incident acquire a larger significance through Morrison's delivery. The title track immediately changes the setting, placing “Moondance” over a buoyant jazz pulse and horn figures. Those opening songs demonstrate how much room Morrison finds inside an economical structure. The music never needs to reduce its ancestry to a single genre.

Horns in conversation

Jack Schroer's saxophone and Collin Tilton's flute and saxophone help establish the instrumental palette. Jef Labes plays keyboards and John Platania guitar, with bassist John Klingberg and drummer Gary Mallaber supporting the rhythmic movement. The horns do more than decorate an already completed vocal melody. Their responses and connecting phrases give the songs definition while leaving space around Morrison's lines.

Cissy Houston, Judy Clay and Jackie Verdell add backing vocals to “Crazy Love” and “Brand New Day”. Here the connection with gospel becomes especially apparent. Morrison can draw a phrase inward before pushing the next one forward, while the ensemble changes its density around him. Following the backing voices is a rewarding way to notice how carefully these apparently effortless songs prepare their peaks.

From the radio into the unknown

“Caravan” makes music itself part of its subject: radio, voices and shared celebration belong to its world. It remained an important live song for Morrison, gaining another familiar incarnation with The Band in The Last Waltz in 1976. On Moondance it sits between the intimacy of “Crazy Love” and the open imagery of “Into the Mystic”. The sequence links very different ways of imagining connection.

The second half deserves attention beyond the album's most familiar titles. “Come Running” and “These Dreams of You” supply direct momentum, while “Everyone” introduces a different instrumental lightness. “Glad Tidings” closes with renewed rhythmic emphasis. These songs help explain the album's coherence: the band maintains continuity while Morrison moves between storytelling, soul singing and a more searching form of expression.

This SACD edition

Analogue Productions releases CAPP 201 SA as a hybrid stereo SACD in its Acoustic Sounds 40 Series. Matthew Lutthans handled the mastering at The Mastering Lab. The publisher describes a flat 24-bit/192 kHz digital transfer of the original master tapes, followed by analogue tube equalisation and conversion to DSD. The disc provides a CD layer for ordinary CD players and a stereo SACD layer for compatible equipment. It presents the original album rather than the later Steven Wilson remix.

In the magazine: Van Morrison: three records to fall in love with

Also in another edition: Moondance

More by Van Morrison: His Band And The Street Choir

Artist page: All titles by Van Morrison

Customer question: Buying Analogue Productions records in Europe

Musicians

Documented selection of participating musicians. Personnel may vary by track; this list does not claim to be complete.