Van dancin' 'neath the cover of October skies

Of all the popular performers of our age, (that leaves you out, Vivaldi), none have been able to evoke the timeless pulse and feel of the seasons as well as Van Morrison, who, throughout his career, has composed a myriad of tone poems to the leaves, fields and meadows that ripple and flow under the dingle dangle of the dappled and starry skies. 
And who better to present a cascading cavalcade of these performances than yours truly, who has been proselytizing on behalf of this guy for nearly (well, I ain't saying for how long other than that we were all a whole lot older then) and who likely has more versions of this, perhaps his greatest tune, than Van's mama do.
If it is true, as the poet, Eliot wrote, "there is only the unattended moment, the moment in and out of time ...lost in a shaft of sunlight, the wild thyme unseen ... the winter lightning ...the waterfall, ... (and) music heard so deeply that it is not heard at all", then Van Morrison has seen and felt and heard and remembered and reminded us of many of those unattended moments - to which we gratefully say, "Turn up your radio and let me hear the song .... TURN IT UP!"

Moondance Number 10. In this, the final installment of the Moondance cavalcade, we find our hero in August, 2014, a week shy of his 69th birthday, returning to perform at his own Orangefield High School in Belfast, proving that even for a life long Irish Rover, you can always go home again.

We now end where we end. 10/30/14

All performance clips are below the break. (Rotten apples department. The video clips can only be viewed through Flash player, which is not available on Apple or Android devices).

Moondance Number 9. As he moved through the years from a romantic Caledonian shaman in search of his golden fleece to an enduring but crusty, cranky, self-indulgent and often disengaged cult figure resigned from the quest for the mystic, (there, I finally said it), the saving grace remains that voice. The instrument may have grown thicker, (as has its' owner), less supple and with diminished range, but the sheer bottle crunching power of that wail remains intact. And sometimes, he can get downright silly. And now, presenting Moondance Number 9, Heeeere's IVAN!

Moondance Number 9 On David Letterman with Georgie Fame and Pee Wee Ellis - 1996

For this evening's Moondance, (Number 8 if you're counting, we return to the original studio sessions for a listen to an alternate take of the still evolving final master track, featuring a moody first verse followed by a jazzy workout that laid the blue print for future performances of this perennial standard. 

 

Moondance Number 7 - in this rendition from 1980 at the Montreaux Jazz Festival, Van locks in with a fiery horn section fronted by Pee Wee Ellis and gets right to the point which is to become one with the song and the dance. 

Moondance Part 6 - In this particular performance, we travel to 1977 to find the Man on the Midnight Special in the company of Carlos Santana, George Benson, Etta James, Dr. John and Tom Scott, planting his feet and insisting that no one - not even the great Etta - was going to steal the spotlight on this magic night. 

Moondance Part 5 This 1979 performance is from Van's first appearance in Belfast since leaving in 1965. It appears on a little known and seldom scene video, Van Morrison in Ireland, released in 1981. The female vocalist is his long time backing singer, Katie Kissoon.  

Moondance Part 4 Next up in our continuing romance with October skies, we find our Man in a 1974 concert, stretching every syllable and squeezing every nuance from each word, striving desperately to wring something new out of the song and himself - and succeeding.

Moondance Part 3: In this episode, we return once more to those thrilling days of yesteryear (1972 to be precise) to find The Belfast Cowboy stretching it out with a local San Francisco bar band trying to find a special place beneath the stars up above. The sound quality of this clip isn't the best but it gets points for archival value. 

Moondance Part 2: In this second part of our multi-part celebration of the October skies with Mr. Morrison, we return to those halcyon days of yesteryear, the year being 1973 when the band, The Caledonia Soul Orchestra, was fresh and new, the song was too and the Man sang it like there was something inside that he had yet to find.

1973 with the Caledonia Soul Orchestra

Moondance Part 1 Presenting here, in this first of a series of performances, in all his sullen, and mysterious elfin glory, celebrating the fantabulous majesty and beauty of October skies, it's Mr. Hospitality himself, the Belfast Cowboy, Van Morrison. 

In this incarnation, we find the Man, in 1998, fronting what this listener maintains was his greatest band, featuring Georgie ("Yeh, Yeh") Fame, former JB's, Fred Wesley and Pee Wee Ellis and, "all the way from Holland", Candy Dulfer!"*

* For those who can't get enough of this funky stuff, the complete concert can be found here.