Over the Rainbow

Way Up High

by Bernett Belgraier

Outright denial, therapeutic enervation, and the "radical acceptance" that probably won't fully descend until well into 2025: Last week alone was a lot to live through, never mind all that preceded it, and God help us, the unthinkable that is to follow.

Perversely, I and many others found a sliver of relief in the clarity that, this time, the tops matched the bottoms: The electoral and popular vote synced up. The people – enough of the people – had spoken. No ifs, ands, or buts were left dangling.

Whatever the hindsight analysis, the explanation or positing, and regardless of the prism through which you view the results (psychology, culture, policy, messaging, economy, emotion, strategy), people had the power, and this is what they did with it - by their actions or inactions – to effect an outcome.

So, this IS America. (For now.)

When I ran into the great pianist Bill Charlap right before being seated for his Friday night Dizzy's Club show, I asked him, "Bill, tonight, a request, please: Something for democracy?"

Bill replied, "Everything I play is for democracy." 

Midway through his solo set of American standards, he peered at me, who was sitting directly across from him and that enormous, gleaming, ebony Steinway. He then – yes, I am sure - made a concerted effort to lock our eyes. He minutely raised his chin and then nodded at me. For a few seconds, no one realized he was communicating with me and me alone. Of this, I am certain.

Bill eased into a restrained and utterly heartbreaking improvisation of "Over The Rainbow," the iconic masterpiece with lyrics by the blacklisted Yip Harburg (who also wrote the lyrics to "Brother Can You Spare A Dime?" among other tunes). The son of Orthodox Jews from Russia, Harburg, a socialist, was raised on the Lower East Side at the turn of the 20th century. His work was heavily influenced by his commitment to economic and social justice.

Under Bill's deft fingers, the Steinway keys laid bare a complicated, delicate tension between the composition's sweetness and melancholy. A tentative hope rested just as tenuously atop the plank of a radical acceptance - let's face it, hope isn't typically a by-product of contentment, and rainbows require light and water. I needed to dab my eyes, and when Bill saw me doing so, I offered him a cautious smile filled with gratitude.

Through the east-facing windowed wall of Dizzy's Club, several stories way up high, with views of Central Park and beyond, the lights of Manhattan twinkled and flickered and glowed. The vertical, man-made landscape of steel columns and public greenery sprouted from our costly ground. For this native New Yorker with roots in this place, not unlike Harburg, I have always carried a sense of pride about my city, with its skyline as majestic as the hoodoo, mesa, and butte rock formations of the American West. But, I was also cognizant that it might not be so appreciated by descendants of the Indigenous people who had, for generations, populated this River-to-River purloined parcel. And, I found myself having to divert my gaze from it, with a sense of shame.   

I will never ask Bill to affirm my experience and whether he played the song for and at me. This is a choice I have made because I can; it's with absolute conviction that I share it with you as I have.

We're all living in the world of the Big Guess these days. Feelings have become facts. Take comfort as you are able.

This is Yip in his words and voice:

This, while not the performance I attended, is a recording of Bill playing "Over The Rainbow," and, ugh, you'll have to skip over whatever ads launch when you click on them.

But, you'll be rewarded.

Hey, I mean, trust me.