Playing this in A minor. It is the key in which my friend Jerry Golland sings it. I usually play it in C minor. A minor is a bit of a challenge for me on the keys, because I find myself playing the melody either too high or too low. Also harder do to blues-inspired improvisation in A minor (C major) than in C minor (Eb major). This is one of the few songs in the Great Songbook repertoire that is not a love song -- more of a protest song, in fact. Jerome Kern's Old Man River is another, and, of course, Strange Fruit and God Bless the Child. There are also Oscar Peterson's Hymn to Freedom and Billy Taylor's similar yearning for freedom song. Yip Harburg wrote the lyrics for Over the Rainbow, by the way, with music by Harold Arlen. Jay Gorney's daughter, Karen Gorney, starred opposite John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.
