Hymn to Freedom

Hymn to Freedom was written on the spot. The Oscar Peterson Trio, with Ray Brown on bass and Ed Thigpen on drums, was recording Night Train for Verve, an album built mostly from blues and R&B standards kept short enough for commercial radio. Norman Granz, Peterson's manager, who supervised the session, suggested they close the record with something that had a definitive early-blues feel. Peterson composed the piece there in the studio. It was the only original on the album, which he dedicated to his father, a sleeping-car attendant on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Peterson named the new piece in honour of Martin Luther King Jr. The album came out in 1963. A year after the recording, Harriette Hamilton wrote lyrics for the melody, and with words added, the stately tune became an unofficial anthem of the civil rights movement. It has remained one of Peterson's best-known compositions. The pianist Oliver Jones, regarded as his disciple, recorded his own version, and the piece is featured prominently in the 2021 documentary Oscar Peterson: Black + White. Night Train itself won the Polaris Heritage Prize in 2019, and Diana Krall has said that hearing it made her want to become a jazz pianist. A tune improvised to round off a record became a hymn that a movement could sing.