The album was made on the initiative of the producer James William Guercio and recorded at Columbia's main studio with Moondog conducting 50 musicians.

The album includes short symphonic-styled works, canons, chaconnes and a couple of jazz-inspired tracks, one in memory of Charlie Parker.

Moondog was regarded as an eccentric, known for standing at a street corner in New York dressed in a homemade Viking costume, and the album contributed significantly to his reputation as a serious composer.

Louis Hardin (1916 – 1999) was a blind composer and musician who was born in Kansas as the son of a priest, moved to New York City in 1943[1] and took the name Moondog in 1947.

[3] In the 1960s he developed his image and worldview: he dressed in a homemade Viking-inspired costume, was a neopagan who believed in the Norse gods and set up an altar at his country retreat in Candor.

[5] In 1969, Moondog was approached by James William Guercio, who was the producer of the bands Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears, accompanied by a representative from Columbia Records.

It takes inspiration from Native American music and is constructed with a canon melody line, a four-note ground played on timpani and a coda that ends in retardation.

The ambition was to capture both the playful side and the strength of Moondog's fictional character Thor the Nordoom, the protagonist of a "soundsaga" or "poetic myth" he had developed.

[10] Alan Rich of New York magazine wrote that the album combines simplicity and subtlety with a sense of spontaneity, and that his fears that the unpretentious and rhythmical qualities of Moondog's earlier releases would be lost in the symphonic orchestration turned out to be unfounded.

He said the music has "old-fashioned" elements reminiscent of Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn and Maurice Ravel but retains Moondog's "airy" textures and "buoyant rhythmic organization".

[5] Entertainment Today said the album ended Moondog's status as "a freak attraction", describing him as "a fine rich-sounding composer".

[10] Stephen Smoliar of Boston After Dark wrote that he was disappointed by Moondog's combination of classical and modern elements, because he did not think it reached its potential.

[11] Pitchfork's Thea Ballard wrote in 2017 that the album's combination of classical European elements and rhythms from New York's minimalist music makes it absorb "the essence of an era while peering beyond it".

[12] Stewart Mason wrote for AllMusic: "Although Moondog is often thought of as a mere exotica novelty, thanks to the composer's eccentricities, it is, in fact, one of the finest third stream jazz albums of its era.

"[13] In an article for Record Collector on the roots of American progressive rock, Kris Needs described Moondog as "an early living embodiment of the exotic prog persona", and added that the album was "one of the era's most spiritedly creative ventures in bringing classical music with a jazzman's twist, to mainstream rock audiences.

[15] At the time, the album was reported to have sold 25,000 copies within a month, although Moondog's biographer Robert Scotto says this was an exaggeration.

[10] The festival, which drew around 150,000 people, is the subject of the 1971 documentary film Stamping Ground directed by George Sluizer and Hansjürgen Pohland [de].