Williamsfan301 11 Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 An interesting side note came up on a email I received from a member of the Conductor's Guild concerning West Side Story. I don't know the answer, but I figured someone on this board probably would. Here's the question..."On a side note, my liner notes from the original Broadway Cast recording (with Larry Kert as Tony) lists John Williams as the pianist. I'm not sure if he was a studio musician or a member of the original pit orchestra, but I've always been curious if it was the John Williams of film composer fame. Does anyone have any more details? I'm sure IBDB.com there might reveal some interesting answers . . . "So, anyone know? JW did do alot of studio work during this time AND would probably still have been at Julliard when this production opened on Broadway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elmo Lewis 6 Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 I've always heard it was our John Williams in the movie, but you want to check with Miguel for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Parker 3,040 Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 I think he either performed for the original Broadway showing or the film, I cannot remember where I read it. Miguel would know, would he not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quintus 5,399 Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 On the subject of this, does anyone know of a good instrumental album of the movie? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Parker 3,040 Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 To be honest, Quint,I have never heard of an instrumental West Side Story album, I am not sure one exists. I found some videos on Youtube.com a while ago that featured Leonard Bernstein's recording sessions, but I cannot seem to find them right now.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elmo Lewis 6 Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 A Special Edition of the soundtrack was released in the early 2000's with all the score as well as the songs. The edition I have only includes the songs and the two most prominent cues ("Overture" and "The Rumble"). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Parker 3,040 Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 Okay, I found them. A really nice documentary, very informative. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBHp52JFGs8 (Part I) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quintus 5,399 Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 Excellent! Thanks Nick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
airmanjerm 78 Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 Stan Kenton's "West Side Story" album is awesome...if you're not familiar with it, you should check it out. It won the Grammy for Best Jazz Recording in the early 60s (19610 or 62 or something). The film's producers heard it after they were finished with the movie, and claimed that they wished they had known about Kenton's version, as they would have used it for the film. In the long run, probably best that didn't happen, as the film is great the way it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Andrade 1,264 Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 John (Towner) Williams was the session pianist on at least some of the sessions of West Side Story film.Regarding the musical, all I can say is that, during the 50's when Williams was studying at Julliard, he did play on jazz clubs and broadway musicals to earn a living and pay for his studies. So it isn't so much of a long shot to think he may have played on at least some performances of this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marian Schedenig 8,211 Posted May 2, 2009 Share Posted May 2, 2009 If you want the musical without singing, the obvious solution would be the Symphonic Dances. Me, I like both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Williamsfan301 11 Posted May 2, 2009 Author Share Posted May 2, 2009 John (Towner) Williams was the session pianist on at least some of the sessions of West Side Story film.Regarding the musical, all I can say is that, during the 50's when Williams was studying at Julliard, he did play on jazz clubs and broadway musicals to earn a living and pay for his studies. So it isn't so much of a long shot to think he may have played on at least some performances of this one.Cool. I'll relate that answer.Thanks much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alejandro 26 Posted May 3, 2009 Share Posted May 3, 2009 Okay, I found them. A really nice documentary, very informative. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBHp52JFGs8 (Part I)This is a re-recording of the songs from West Side Story, conducted by Bernstein. He used opera singers. This is a great 60 minute documentary, and there are a few moments when you can really see his temper. The male vocalist looks scared and worried most of the time. The instrumental portions are excellent! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg1138 3 Posted May 3, 2009 Share Posted May 3, 2009 Miguel - nice to see you again!!!Alejandro - I'm glad I'm not the only one who seems to know about this doc....it's well worth a watch to see Bernstein almost throw his teddies out of his pram when Jose Carreras (does anyone else see the fatal flaw in that casting??) asks to do 2 bars again.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crumbs 14,319 Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 Well it would certainly bring things full circle if JW arranged the score for a Spielberg version of West Side Story, wouldn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crumbs 14,319 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 I wonder if Williams is orchestrating anything for this? Production begins early next summer apparently (no release date announced). Wouldn't they need the music recorded in advance of production, for use on set? And would Spielberg hire anyone other than Williams to oversee the sessions? I'm guessing we'll hear more over the coming months, as Williams will probably start writing for SWIX early next year as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tannhauser 101 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 I hope Williams is involved in this. I can't think of a better person to oversee the music, conduct the sessions, and adapt where necessary. However, I wonder if they will go down the pre-recorded route. I feel the modern approach to film musicals is interesting, where the singers sing on set with a live piano accompaniment relayed to discreetly concealed headphones, allowing them to shape the vocal performance with their acting, and the accompanist following their interpretation. The orchestra then replaces the piano accompaniment in the sessions. This worked well for the recent Les Miserables film, but would it be feasible with a score as complex as West Side Story? Either way, I'm very excited for this adaptation! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crumbs 14,319 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 I'm sure Williams has been consulted as a minimum. It would be rather shocking if Spielberg finally made his long-awaited musical and his closest collaborator (arguably the greatest living film composer) wasn't even involved. No way! One way or another the music needs to be freshly recorded for Spielberg's film (potentially before they even start filming). Why would he hire anyone other than Williams to conduct those sessions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thor 7,529 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 1 hour ago, crumbs said: I wonder if Williams is orchestrating anything for this? Production begins early next summer apparently (no release date announced). Wouldn't they need the music recorded in advance of production, for use on set? And would Spielberg hire anyone other than Williams to oversee the sessions? I'm guessing we'll hear more over the coming months, as Williams will probably start writing for SWIX early next year as well. SWIX. Funny abbreviation. Name of a type of ski wax here in Norway (and also a sports/ski brand in general): But back on topic -- yes, I'd be curious to see if Spielberg will hire anyone other than Williams to oversee this, since he's a guy who actually PLAYED on the original recording! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crumbs 14,319 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 And you just know that will make a great story in some Variety article promoting Williams' involvement, a bit like how he met Katharine Graham years before Spielberg made The Post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tannhauser 101 Posted December 18, 2018 Share Posted December 18, 2018 Listening to the West Side Story movie version soundtrack again. It's horrible! What were the arrangers thinking when they decided to rewrite the prologue, throwing in little smatterings of "Cool" and the Ballet music here and there? Also the horribly over-sized orchestra detracts so much from the tight, spiky score. No wonder Bernstein hated it. I trust Williams and Spielberg will be more intelligent and respectful to the music! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crumbs 14,319 Posted December 19, 2018 Share Posted December 19, 2018 I'm sure Bernstein would want Williams as music supervisor for any remake of the film. Surely everyone involved wants it! I'd just be very surprised if the wheels aren't already in motion. We haven't really heard anything about Williams since London, not even about his return to LA or recovery (I believe he was fully recovered before even leaving London?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lairdo 726 Posted December 24, 2018 Share Posted December 24, 2018 The 1961 soundtrack album to the film did have John Williams on piano on it (at least for part of it as some people noted). Importantly regarding the film, according to the biography of Bernstein I read earlier this year, Lenny was not involved in the film. Johnny Green was brought in to handle the conducting. I highly recommend John Williams and the Boston Pops' album Bernstein by Boston. It's still in print (at least digitally). Just a great take on the tunes of LB from his hometown. https://www.discogs.com/Leonard-BernsteinBoston-Pops-John-Williams-Bernstein-By-Boston/release/9225905 I completely agree that John Williams should be involved in WSS if Spielberg finally does it. As if a resume were needed, here are his qualifications: 1. Played on West Side Story film 2. Won academy award for adapting Fiddler on the Roof from Broadway production. Also worked and nominated for adapting other material throughout early part of his career 3. Extensive jazz background 4. Knew and worked with Leonard Bernstein 5. Pretty good at writing for the human voice 6. Knows that young kid Spielberg at the helm of this project The only issue I really see is if there is a big push to work with the current crop of broadway star writers and lyricists. The same can probably be asked about the choreography. Does the Jerome Robbins material need to be replaced? It's still performed during ballets around the world. However, if the film is the same as the 1960's version, what's the point in remaking it? Two other musicals (well, one is an opera) that John Williams has lot of connection to are My Fair Lady and Porgy and Bess. On MFL, he played on the film recording, and he created arrangements for Shelly Manne's jazz album (which is great). These were also performed at Tanglewood a while back. On P&B, he played on the film score (led by long time associate of JW, André Previn) as well as a number of other related albums of the music from the late 50's and 60's including a Broadway cast revival album. In the Joshua Bell album Gershwin Fantasy, there is a fantasy on the music from P&B conducted by JW. Courage (another name long associated with JW) did the orchestration for that piece. On 5/2/2009 at 2:48 PM, Miguel Andrade said: Regarding the musical, all I can say is that, during the 50's when Williams was studying at Julliard, he did play on jazz clubs and broadway musicals to earn a living and pay for his studies. So it isn't so much of a long shot to think he may have played on at least some performances of this one. I have recently found another John T. Williams, jazz pianist, active in NYC around the same time. (I am sure he is noted on these forums, so apologies for not looking first.) He was there in the 50's in NY and did a number of recordings. John Thomas Williams was born January 28, 1929 in Vermont. His career started with him playing church organ. He later played in an Army band in Korea (a parallel to famous JW in the Air Force band). He went to NY in 1954. He played a lot with Stan Getz. He moved to Miami in the late 50's, so he could have played in the pit for the broadway run of West Side Story before leaving for Florida. However, I've not seen any notes on him that indicated that he did any such work. He passed away 9 days ago (Dec 15, 2018) at the age of 89. https://news.allaboutjazz.com/john-thms-williams-1929-2018.php Falstaft and Will 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo 3,709 Posted December 24, 2018 Share Posted December 24, 2018 I hope Williams doesn’t retire after Episodr IX but I also hope he doesn’t waste his valuable remaining time on this tripe. Not Mr. Big, Naïve Old Fart, crumbs and 1 other 1 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tannhauser 101 Posted December 24, 2018 Share Posted December 24, 2018 Much more interested in this than another Star Wars film! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Andrade 1,264 Posted December 25, 2018 Share Posted December 25, 2018 16 hours ago, lairdo said: I have recently found another John T. Williams, jazz pianist, active in NYC around the same time. (I am sure he is noted on these forums, so apologies for not looking first.) He was there in the 50's in NY and did a number of recordings. John Thomas Williams was born January 28, 1929 in Vermont. His career started with him playing church organ. He later played in an Army band in Korea (a parallel to famous JW in the Air Force band). He went to NY in 1954. He played a lot with Stan Getz. He moved to Miami in the late 50's, so he could have played in the pit for the broadway run of West Side Story before leaving for Florida. However, I've not seen any notes on him that indicated that he did any such work. He passed away 9 days ago (Dec 15, 2018) at the age of 89. https://news.allaboutjazz.com/john-thms-williams-1929-2018.php Yes, I'm well aware of John Thomas Williams. Didn't know he had just passed away. He was active on the East Coast jazz scene for a while, during the 50's, then got disenchanted and moved to Florida. He still did play every now and then and even helped with a Jazz Festival. The easiest way to be sure of which John T. Williams we are looking at is trough recording locations. John Thomas recorded either in New Jersey or New York. His only recording made in the west coast, was a live one, while on tour with Stan Getz. The problem is that both of them played for a lot of the same people, many of whom started on one coast and then moved to the other, ending up having two different pianist with the same name... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crumbs 14,319 Posted December 25, 2018 Share Posted December 25, 2018 JW finishing at 8 of 9 Star Wars films is basically my worst nightmare, especially considering his likely successor. Yuck. Bayesian 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bilbo 3,709 Posted December 25, 2018 Share Posted December 25, 2018 11 hours ago, tannhauser said: Much more interested in this than another Star Wars film! Him completing a 9 film saga of his own creation or him adaptaing something written by someone else? Easy decision. Not Mr. Big 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thor 7,529 Posted December 25, 2018 Share Posted December 25, 2018 To my knowledge, no composer ever has done a 9-film saga like this. Correct me if I'm wrong. It's a worthy feat to go out on. But again -- I don't know why this thread keeps running (and why I keep contributing to that). There is no official word on this. Let's just sit back and enjoy it for as long as we can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post lairdo 726 Posted December 25, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted December 25, 2018 22 minutes ago, Thor said: To my knowledge, no composer ever has done a 9-film saga like this. Correct me if I'm wrong. Certainly, there is nothing to compare the 9 films too (and the influence on 2 other modern films + the 80's movies + the TV shows + Shadows of the Empire + the games + Disneyland/Disney World + the Radio Shows + audiobooks +....). But really, there have not been many opportunities for such work either. The closest in my mind is the Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner which I love but it's so hard to compare them because JW is such an opposite to Richard Wagner in terms of temperament, world view and personality. Plus of course Williams has composed far more total music than Wagner's 13 operas and handful of concert works. But if we want to compare musical treatment for the same master story arc, it would be The Ring and Star Wars (which crosses art forms). Time-wise it's about 16.5 hours (depending on the conductor) vs. 20+ hours (for SW - assuming 2 hours or so for Ep IX.) Next up is Howard Shore's work on the 6 Hobbit/LoTR films. The movies are longer, so the to the total music time gets close to the same. Yet, to me, they still feel like 2 related but different trilogies - more even than the SW prequel trilogy does to the original trilogy. What makes JW's feat on SW even more amazing is that we also have 4 Indiana Jones films (and maybe 5 + some of one Young Indy episode). Even a 4/5 film franchise with consistent musical language and development is odd in itself. John Barry did 11 James Bond films (not including touching up Dr. No and orchestrating the Bond theme for that outing). So, that's more movies than Star Wars will be (depending on how you count Solo and Rogue One). And Barry does have a few themes that work across many of the films (and even show up in the David Arnold scores). However, there is no consistency of development. Very few characters reappear in any meaningful way, so there is less chance for a musical language to span. Plus John Barry did not really compose that way. He let the songs form the new themes each time out which works for the Bond formula. (From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds are Forever, The Man with the Golden Gun, Moonraker, Octopussy, A View to a Kill, The Living Daylights.) Harry Potter (and Fantastic Beasts) deserves a mention because of the influence of the Hedwig Theme on the other scores, but really, the soundtracks do not hold a consistency across the 8+2 films. And the use of the themes shifts a bit too with Harry linked to Hedwig's music on the later films. What else is there with a lot of entries to even compare? I guess things like the Thin Man series, the Abbot & Costello films, Fast and The Furious, Police Academy. Perhaps things like 30's/40's serials - Buck Rogers, Tarzan, stuff like that - although I have no idea how much was done by the same composer. Finally, maybe in some way the Hammer Films make up some sort of epic scope, but few are in the same fictional universes. Gosh, I know this does not belong in this thread, but there you go! rough cut, Ricard and Bayesian 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488 Posted December 25, 2018 Share Posted December 25, 2018 I prefer the pre-2009 Star Trek approach of letting various composers have a go at the series. It keeps things more eclectic while still remaining stylistically similar (Rosenthal's still achieves the romantic Trek sound, even if mainly in the closing minutes; original Courage theme binds the Enterprise saga) and the contributions of all those guys are just great. Of course, we can't expect Hollywood composers circa 2019 to deliver anything worthy of JW or on the level of the countless hours of Star Trek music or all those John Barry 007 scores. Those days are long gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lairdo 726 Posted December 25, 2018 Share Posted December 25, 2018 38 minutes ago, Horner's Dynamic Range said: I prefer the pre-2009 Star Trek approach of letting various composers have a go at the series. Doh. How could I forget Star Trek. Irony is that one of my holiday break project is to clean up my media closet, and I just organized the Star Trek CDs. Golly. I think we think of Courage/Steiner/Goldsmith as a unit, then for sure that's pretty close in terms of impact. Goldsmith for sure on defining the sound of the 10 original trek movies and TNG + Voyager. My wife did not know that the Next Gen theme came from STTMP until yesterday. (She has only seen that film once or twice but has seen all the TV shows multiple times through.) Jerry did 5 of the films. Ironically of course, the most famous Khan was scored by young James Horner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ollie 1,059 Posted December 26, 2018 Share Posted December 26, 2018 Akira Ifukube scored 11 Godzilla films, a 12th film featured a score entirely comprised of his music from previous films. 6 other films used his music at various points. Plus he scored 11 films that featured possible tie ins to the Godzilla universe. Bayesian and Ricard 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488 Posted December 26, 2018 Share Posted December 26, 2018 Who is this Godzilla? Where did he come from? Why is he here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now