Brando

When it comes to the complete score, Empire is way more entertaining.

The only time anyone ever said that about Nixon 

Is that the singer from Toto?  

Me too!! 
 
This news is breathtaking to me. At 91 JW is practically my de facto travel influencer, inspiring me to visit countries I've never seen before. 
 
ASM alluded to him one day conducting in the "far east" but I thought it would be a bridge too far at his age... yet here we are. The flight from LA to Tokyo is no small feat for a man of his age. 

I've always wanted to go to Japan...

Oh September 2 is a Saturday, and I'm not too far away in Seoul. No idea how hard tickets will be to get, but I'll try! and I'm not working the week before. 

Are we sure it won't be William Ross with a fake beard?

What, he's going to Japan now?! Crazy with all these long-distance travels for a man who turns 91 tomorrow.

https://www.ozawa-festival.com/en/news/2023/02/07/140000.html


 
 

WHAT?!?!?!

Walking down the high street, scaffolders listening to the radio and the DJ says something like "...and later we'll come face to face with John Williams...". Slight pause and wonder if I've misheard. The radio station sounded like Radio 1 (national UK pop music station for those not in the UK) or Island FM (local radio) so not like it was Radio 3 (classical station - I'd probably need to be smelling salts/CPR to be revived from the shock of finding scaffolders listening to Radio 3). DJ continues, after surprising pause "he does... you know, the music, for films... like Star Wars, Harry Potter...". I had to hurry on so that's all I heard. I have no idea what it was all about, but yeah, random. Clearly the guy had no idea who JW was though lol.

I honestly think that the more MM goes through JW's catalog and presents him with these great presentations of his work, and he hears all the feedback about how well they are selling and how much his fans like them, he'll get more and more open to having Mike work on his older scores.  I'm not sure he'll ever change his mind on source music though, lol  
 
 
What bums me out more are the scores JW's done for which it seems the original scoring elements no longer exist on this earth.  Azkaban, Return of the Jedi's album day, ET's album day, Jaws' album session, Images, Fiddler on the Roof, Jane Eyre, The Reivers, Daddy's Gone A-Hunting, Heidi, The Plainsman, Screaming Woman....
 
Such a bummer to think those tapes existed for some limited amount of time, then just went missing or got destroyed.  Well, I guess you never know what will turn up in unusual spots

It’s okay, you are the parental life coach after all.

The score is just so rich and dense with incredible themes and a much larger palette than ANH. 

Maybe someone is trying to bribe or coerce Jay into allowing political and religious discussion on the forum?

Thanks, Jay.

Ugh, it’s “couldn’t care less”, not “could care less”.  🤣. Sorry couldn’t help it this is one of my pet peeves because so many people say it wrong 😂 

WHAT?!?!?!

Lol I know right???
 
I personally think the overall theme is just a bit overrated. I'm well aware this is a horrible opinion.
 
But I do love the statement of that theme at the tail end of the Battle of Hoth.  I like it in really short moments.

Empire is probably my favorite Star Wars score. I do also really like the original film's score and the scores for TPM and ROTS, but ESB is really special in that there isn't a single dull second in the entire 2+ hour score. It's almost hard to name highlights because *every single cue* is memorable.
 
It's also probably my favorite Williams score, if only because I'm not as intimately familiar with his work outside of Star Wars and Harry Potter

WHAT?!?!?!

Yeah, and it'll arrive on the same year as the Matessino-produced "The John Williams Star Wars Collection" and "The John Williams Indiana Jones Collection", two boxes containing every single second of music recorded by JW for all SW and IJ movies he ever worked on. Besides, it'll be only an year after the four-disc Hook complete edition, which will include songs for the movie that even Williams himself didn't remember writing. All JWFans who haven't left Earth to work on the Mars terraforming project or weren't enslaved by a despotic artificial Intelligence known as "Meta-Google-Apple" will celebrate with their flying cars on the street.

A little update to the anecdote I heard or read somewhere about JW playing on the piano, semi-publicly, at the Four Seasons Hotel at Park Lane, London, whenever he was recording in London.   I stayed at the hotel this weekend and the kind concierge staff were able to get in touch with former colleagues (only one member of staff remains who remembers his visits personally) and confirm that Williams was a regular at the hotel whenever he came to London (apparently George Lucas and Steven Spielberg preferred The Connaught hotel, I was told).   The hotel has undergone extensive recent renovations so the rooms/suites that he would have stayed in no longer exist in their old form so I couldn’t visit those spaces unfortunately.   However, the concierge was able to confirm they rented pianos to his room/suite from Jaques Samuel (https://www.jspianos.com) and he did use the semi-public (i.e. just off publicly accessible corridors) function rooms to meet with colleagues (orchestrators, I assume) and meet and play some of his work on piano there.   So there’s a grain of truth to the originally reported anecdote that I recall - I dearly wish I could remember where from. People in neighbouring function rooms (there are several) would definitely have heard him improvising his new material here.   The documentaries on Howard Shore’s work on Lord of the Rings (so much written, or at least rewritten, at The Dorchester) made me think about how much of the great film music we love would have been written in a hotel room. I’m kind of fascinated by those moments in which Williams (and others) finally “discovers” or “accepts” a theme in its final form after chipping away at it. He says there’s never a “Eureka!” moment but many of the moments of final acceptance would seem to have taken place in hotels! I believe he often stayed at The Blantyre hotel in Massachusetts and composed so much there too. Moreover, I’d love to know what composers, especially Williams, have to say about how *where* they wrote impacted on the end product.   Anyway, a thoroughly enjoyable stay and the staff at Four Seasons really seemed to take a lot of pride in the fact JW stayed with them so regularly.