My dearest Catherine soloed on Over the Rainbow with the Radcliffe Pitches at 19. While she was newly arrived at Harvard from her Kansas (City) home, I was over the river (Charles) at NEC. Early on I was considering pursuit of both Classical and Jazz studies, and while Cate was doing her superb close harmonies with classmates I was in a basement dorm practice room seeking to enlarge my Jazz voicing vocabulary by exploring alternate voicings of — Over the Rainbow.
Cate would return to sing the song at every Harvard reunion since, and sang it innumerable times to her infant daughters.
I’m thrilled that the first song arrangement I’ve done in over a year, the first since Cate and I came to know each other barely six months ago, and the first which I’ve explored with Cate in constant hearing, would be this Harold Arlen song from The Wizard of Oz.
I dedicate this new work to Cate, my love.
Double rainbow photographs over our home by Catherine Weary
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