''Music Out of the Moon: Music Unusual Featuring the Theremin - Themes by Harry Revel'' (Capitol CC-47) is an album consisting of six songs on three 10-inch, 78 rpm records by bandleader

Les Baxter Leslie Thompson Baxter (March 14, 1922 – January 15, 1996) was an American composer, conductor, and musician. After working as an arranger and composer for swing bands, he developed his own style of easy listening music, known as exotica and s ...

and composer Harry Revel with

theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone, etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named aft ...

player Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman released on Capitol in April 1947. ''Music Out of the Moon'' is considered the best-selling

record of all time.

Music

The music was a mixture of late 1940s lounge jazz and film music underpinned by Hoffman’s otherworldly theremin playing. According to the liner notes: "Harry Revel created the basic "idea" and themes while Leslie Baxter, conductor and arranger, has given them appropriately unique tone color, using mass harmonies of human voices as well as unusual instrumental effects with woodwinds, strings and bass; some without rhythm, others with a dominant, demanding beat."

Cover

''Music Out of the Moon'' was noteworthy for being one of the first albums to feature a full color cover – a risqué photograph by Paul Garrison of partially clothed actress Virginia Clark of the Earl Carroll Theatre, Hollywood, sprawled across a bed – which made it stand out in an era of monochrome album packaging.

Reissues

''Music Out of the Moon'' was reissued by Capitol in 1950 on one 10-inch, 33⅓ rpm disc (Capitol H-2000). In 1954, ''Music Out of the Moon'' was combined with '' Music for Peace of Mind'' -- a six-song 1950 collaboration between Billy May, Revel and Hoffman -- on one 12-inch, 33⅓ rpm disc (Capitol T390). In 1999, Basta reissued ''Music Out of the Moon'' on a CD called ''Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman and the Theremin'', which also included '' Perfume Set to Music'' (1948) and '' Music for Peace of Mind'' (1950). In 2004, Rev-Ola issued the same three albums on a CD called ''Waves in the Ether: The Magical World of the Theremin''.

Played in space by Neil Armstrong

The Hollywood producer Mickey Kapp compiled a

cassette tape The Compact Cassette, also commonly called a cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog audio, analog magnetic tape recording format for Sound recording and reproduction, audio recording and playback. Invented by L ...

of tracks from the album for astronaut

Neil Armstrong Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aerospace engineering, aeronautical engineer who, in 1969, became the Apollo 11#Lunar surface operations, first person to walk on the Moon. He was al ...

, who brought the tape on the

Apollo 11 Apollo 11 was a spaceflight conducted from July 16 to 24, 1969, by the United States and launched by NASA. It marked the first time that humans Moon landing, landed on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin l ...

Moon mission in 1969. He played it from the

Apollo spacecraft The Apollo spacecraft was composed of three parts designed to accomplish the American Apollo program's goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by the end of the 1960s and returning them safely to Earth. The expendable (single-use) spacecraft ...

on a Sony TC-50 during the flight back from the Moon when it was about from Earth, and explained, "That's an old favorite of mine, about – It's an album made about 20 years ago, called ''Music Out of the Moon''."
NASA audio recording
The record appears in '' First Man'', the 2018 biopic of Armstrong directed by

Damien Chazelle Damien Sayre Chazelle (; born January 19, 1985) is an American filmmaker. He directed the psychological drama ''Whiplash (2014 film), Whiplash'' (2014), the musical romance ''La La Land'' (2016), the biographical drama ''First Man (film), First ...

Track listing (CC-47)

External links

Track recordings online:
Lunar Rhapsody

Moon Moods

Lunette

Celestial Nocturne

Mist O' The Moon

Radar Blues

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Music Out of the Moon 1947 albums Les Baxter albums Samuel Hoffman albums Compositions by Harry Revel