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Collaborative albums conducted by JW: Any favourites?


Bespin

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Here are all the collaborative albums of John Williams where he's credited as conductor, as well as the albums where he appears as a "guest star" with other conductors.

I bet none of us really listened to all these albums! But among those you know, which ones are your favourites?

NOTE: This list doesn't include compilations, unless they are the only source.

1957 Yvonne De Carlo Sings

1957 Porgy & Bess

1960 Pam Garner Sings Ballads for Broken Hearts

1960 James Darren Sings Songs from His Films & More

1961 Vic Damone - Young and Lively

1961 Frankie Laine - Hell Bent for Leather!
1961 Frankie Laine - Deuces Wild

1962 Frankie Laine - Call of the Wild

1962 Frankie Laine - Wanderlust

1962 Mahalia Jackson - Everytime I Feel the Spirit

1962 Mahalia Jackson - I Believe

1962 Mahalia Jackson - Great Songs of Love and Faith

1962 Mahalia Jackson - Songs for Christmas: Silent Night

1962 Johhny Desmond - So Nice!

1963 André Previn in Hollywood

1964 Shelly Manne - My Fair Lady

1964 André Previn - Sound Stage!

1965 Shelly Manne - That's Gershwin

1982 Luciano Pavarotti - Yes, Giorgio ("If We Were in Love" conducted by John Williams)

1984 The Official Music of the 1984 Games

1984 Jessye Norman - With a Song in My Heart

1988 1988 Summer Olympics Album

1992 Jessye Norman - Lucky to Be Me

1996 Land of the Giants

1997 Itzhak Perlman - Cinema Serenade

1997 Lost in Space, Vol. 2 [Original Television Soundtrack]

1997 The Time Tunnel

1998 Joshua Bell - Gershwin Fantasy

1999 Itzhak Perlman - Cinema Serenade 2: The Golden Age

2000 Lost in Space, Vol. 3 [Original Television Soundtrack]

2000 Don't Make Waves / Penelope (Penelope's music Composed and Conducted by John Williams)

2001 Classic Yo-Yo (American Collection Theme composed and directed by John Williams)

2002 Yo-Yo Ma Plays the Music of John Williams

2004 Penelope / Bachelor in Paradise (Penelope's music Composed and Conducted by John Williams, Previously unreleased original score)

2005 Lost in Space 40th Anniversary Edition

2005 Jericho / The Ghostbreaker (The Ghostbreaker's music Composed and Conducted by John Williams)

2006 Amazing Stories - Anthology 1 (Some tracks composed & conducted by John Williams)

2006 Amazing Stories - Anthology 2 (Some tracks composed & conducted by John Williams)

2007 Amazing Stories - Anthology 3 (Some tracks composed & conducted by John Williams)

2008 Superman: The Music

2009 Yo-Yo Ma - 30 Years Outside the Box (Memoirs of a Geisha Suite recorded live in 2008, with Yo-Yo Ma and The Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by John Williams)

2010 TV Omnibus: Volume One (1962-1976) (Contains the previously unreleased score from The Bronze Locust (1963), Music Composed and Conducted by Johnny Williams)

2011 Nightwatch / Killer by Night (Nighwatch's music Composed and Conducted by John Williams; Previously unreleased score)

2013 We'll Paint You a Rainbow ("Somewhere Over the Rainbow" conducted by John Williams)

2014 The Glenn Dicterow Collection ("Schindler's List: Main Theme" composed and conducted by John Williams)

PS: If you want my opinion, yes, CDs that merge two different scores by two different conductors are a total aberration.

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I bet none of us really listened to all these albums!

Yeah. Compiling a top-ten out of 45 isn't much of a worthwhile exercise, either. It's almost a fourth of the list, and then you're going from very-best to simply what you like more than others.

But I do favor a few of these:

Cinema Serenade

Yo-Yo Ma Plays the Music of John Williams

Amazing Stories: Anthology 1

I love when these two guys play his stuff. They just know how to capture his spirit. The last is more a straight score that he composed, but it's a good one.

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Amazing Stories

Superman: The Music

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Lost in Space

 

Well Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is an UFO... It's in fact a William Ross album, JW don't perform on it.

He's an extract of the Porgy & Bess 1957 album, an album that I actually love very much:

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He, he....you and your strange 'performance' criterion thingie, Bespin! :) HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS is very much a John Williams album (with additional music by Ross). It does not stop being a John Williams album just because he didn't conduct.

As for your list, I have several of those albums. It's certainly an eclectic mix you've got there.

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He chose the right pages from HP1 for the few cues that Williams didn't get to write, and then oversaw the entire recording sessions process. That's it. Williams wrote everything you hear.

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Are there any moments in the score that you can identity as being predominantly John’s work, versus those that you can identify as being primarily yours?

ROSS: I’m not sure how to answer that question. I think some people get confused because they see the “Music Adapted by” credit. That was something that John insisted on from our first meeting. The reality however is that CHAMBER OF SECRETS is a John Williams score beginning to end.

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Are there any moments in the score that you can identity as being predominantly John’s work, versus those that you can identify as being primarily yours?

ROSS: I’m not sure how to answer that question. I think some people get confused because they see the “Music Adapted by” credit. That was something that John insisted on from our first meeting. The reality however is that CHAMBER OF SECRETS is a John Williams score beginning to end.

It means everything that follows that sentence has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

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For my part, I must admit I'm not a fan of the sung albums. By example, I never listened to the albums of Vic Damone, Frankie Laine, Mahalia Jackson, Johhny Desmond, Shelly Manne, or Jessye Norman and I have a very little interest in discovering them.

On the other hand, LP "Porgy & Bess" is a beautiful exception. I really loved this recording at first hearing.

I have no interest in "Various artists" compilation too, like the Amazing Stories or Lost In space CDs. I think they should do compilations with John Williams stuff only.

But I've been more curious about the "André Previn in Hollywood" & "André Previn - Sound Stage!" albums, that I've digitally restored from LP rips. But after few listening, I can't yet say that they are really a crush. In fact, these albums, and maybe that's the fact that they originate from LPs, sounds a little bit "aged".

So, here is my personal Top 5:

1957 Porgy & Bess
1997 Itzhak Perlman - Cinema Serenade
1999 Itzhak Perlman - Cinema Serenade 2: The Golden Age
2001 Classic Yo-Yo (American Collection Theme composed and directed by John Williams)
2002 Yo-Yo Ma Plays the Music of John Williams
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  • 5 months later...

Someone updated my wiki disco to add some reissues info about these two Shelly Manne albums:

1964 My Fair Lady with the Un-Original Cast
1965 Manne—That's Gershwin!

What do you think of these albums?

manne_shell_myfairlad_101b.jpg

R-1341324-1295207417.jpeg.jpg

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  • 4 weeks later...

You left out two of the best! Keisuke Wakao Plays Music of John Williams and Williams: Oboe Concerto. Do you have something against gorgeous oboe music?

On the first one, John Williams plays piano on a track, he's not conducting. For the other, it's a true "John Williams" EP, so I don't consider it as a collaborative album.

It's maybe subjective, but in this case Wakao is a soloist and not "the" main featured artist.

oboe_concerto_345x290.jpg

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You left out two of the best! Keisuke Wakao Plays Music of John Williams and Williams: Oboe Concerto. Do you have something against gorgeous oboe music?

On the first one, John Williams plays piano on a track, he's not conducting. For the other, it's a true "John Williams" EP, so I don't consider it as a collaborative album.

:blink:

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Wiki disco and it's categories. Please again don't shoot the messenger :-)


You left out two of the best! Keisuke Wakao Plays Music of John Williams and Williams: Oboe Concerto. Do you have something against gorgeous oboe music?

On the first one, John Williams plays piano on a track, he's not conducting. For the other, it's a true "John Williams" EP, so I don't consider it as a collaborative album.

It's maybe subjective, but in this case Wakao is a soloist and not "the" main featured artist.

oboe_concerto_345x290.jpg

You know, these "discography" labelled threads I've created are just a way to illustrate the richness and variety of JW discography.

"Keisuke Wakao Plays Music of John Williams" is indeed a collaborative album for John Williams (look at the disco), I listed it in a thread dedicated to "John T. Williams - the pianist": http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=25145&hl=

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