17 year old John "Curley" Williams

[Jay 37,323]

Conrad Pope says

 

"A friend of mine shared with me this newspaper article from 1949. Scroll down beyond the Britten part to the section called "Phuff." There, the columnist writes about a young band of teenage musicians from North Hollywood High School.
The "Curly" of the article is John Williams. NHHS was the alma of other iconic musicians including Paula Robison and John Neufeld, among others. The article clearly shows you're never too young -or too old- NOT to take music seriously. It also shows that over a lifetime dedicated to music,wherever JW stood, he always stood out! Hope you enjoy the read. "

 

(click to embiggen)

[Edmilson 7,398]

Just saw the article on Conrad's Facebook, pretty awesome!

 

33 minutes ago, Jay said:

embiggen

Is that a real word in the English language? I thought it was a Simpsons joke.

[Jay 37,323]

It is a Simpsons joke

[Manakin Skywalker 4,891]

Is that Andy Bernard in the background? I never knew that John Williams was a member of Here Comes Treble!

 

[Andy 4,092]

Their cover of Show Me The Way To Go Home will be a bonus track on the Intrada Reissue of Jaws.

[Holko 9,499]

Not a nickname that aged greatly... or ironically better than they thought?

 

 

His vision of jamming after SMTWTGH changed significantly in just 2.5 decades:

 

[filmmusic 1,823]

There was already a thread about it back in 2013:

https://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/23090-john-williams-article-time-magazine-oct-31-1949/

although I understand this is the original newspaper page.

 

Anyway, anyone can read it here if he wants too:

https://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=95574&forumID=1&archive=0

[Thor 7,478]

That’s right, Konstantinos! The article is old news in more ways than one. I suppose the only difference is that my earlier threads didn’t have the actual scan of the page.

[rough cut 1,714]

What does it say? ”As Curley, the boss of the juvenile jazz-…”?

[Omen II 1,235]

19 minutes ago, rough cut said:

What does it say? ”As Curley, the boss of the juvenile jazz-…”?

 

I think it says jazz-bos.  A 'jazzbo' is a term for a musician or a fan of jazz.  I think they have just hyphenated the word in the article.

[rough cut 1,714]

Thanks! Never heard the term before.

[QuartalHarmony 542]

Talking vaguely of which, are there any surviving pictures out there of JW before the testosterone wrought havoc on his hairline? I’ve got the Jazz Beginnings CD, which has a few, but are there any earlier ones?

 

Based on the Jazz Beginnings photos, I assume ‘Curly’ wasn’t a reference to curly hair.

 

Mark

[Docteur Qui 1,544]

"Everyone was fighting for their own salad". Man, Williams really was super cool back in his day, I love hearing his jazz cat vocabulary.

 

It also reminds me of his hilarious quote, I can't remember the exact context or words but he basically shut someone down who was fanning over his music or his films, he said something to the effect of "when I was your age all I was thinking about was girls". buuuurn.

[Marian Schedenig 8,179]

18 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:

but he basically shut someone down

 

Lukas Kendall.

[Andy 4,092]

So this was a full eight years before he'd release his first album, the John Towner Touch.  Wow!

 

I googled Phuff to see if it had any use beyond this article, and it seems like it's truly unique to them.