John Williams Playing Piano at The Four Seasons Hotel, London (some years ago)

[APBez 11]

This is another one of those "I'm sure I read somewhere..." posts and my memory seeks confirmation - hopefully someone can provide it!

 

I'm sure I read somewhere (or maybe it was mentioned in an interview on a DVD extra or something) that when JW was recording with the LSO in London, possibly during some Star Wars sessions, he would often stay at The Four Seasons Hotel (I assume the Park Lane one) and was known to occasionally play the piano in the hotel lobby and actually played/improvised/tested (?) some of the material he was in the process of writing/recording at this piano, possibly in the presence of the director or orchestrators perhaps. Can anyone shed any light on this? 

 

I'm planning to stay at the hotel in a couple of weeks and wondered about trying to seek out any longer-serving staff members at The Four Seasons to see if they have any recollection of this semi-public playing.

 

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

Cheers.

[Thor 9,323]

Never heard of this, but feel free to share any info you may come across when you stay there.

[Sweeping Strings 3,024]

Sounds to me like Johnny had a lil' side hustle goin' on back in the day ... can just picture him tinkling away with a tip jar on top of the ol' joanna. A man's gotta eat, after all!  

[bruckhorn 124]

Yeah.  Back then, the dollar was not strong compared to the pound.  And the possibility of being made to take redundancy, J-Dubs needed all the spare cash he could get.

[Edmilson 10,970]

It's funny that there is, like, no way to keep JW away from his music. Even when he's staying in a hotel, he still will find a way to play whatever piano they happen to have.

[BrotherSound 2,572]

🎶 And they sit at the bar, and put bread in my jar
And say, John, what are you doin' here? 🎶

 

[artguy360 2,128]

The only thing I've read is that when JW stayed at a hotel for recording in London, he made sure there was a piano in his hotel suite so he could keep working.

[APBez 11]

Thanks for these replies. The more I think about it, I think it was a print or online interview with one of his orchestrators. It was definitely The Four Seasons. Anyway, I'm determined to find out if any staff at the hotel can clarify. Will update you when I visit next month.

[Naïve Old Fart 12,142]

Did he play "Six Months To Live"?

[pete 1,248]

He wouldn’t play any themes he’s working on in public 

[karelm 3,236]

1 hour ago, pete said:

He wouldn’t play any themes he’s working on in public 

Yes, this story doesn't ring true.  I do believe he created/tweaked music while recording but those were not trivially done but likely he had a piano in his room and was in full work mode.  Because it would then have to go to the orchestrator then copyist while maintaining a tight budget for the initial film at least.  Plus, he's a workaholic.  His idea of fun was work.  

[APBez 11]

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.

 

[Thor 9,323]

Thanks for checking it out, APBez. Would have been wild if there had been some anecdote about him playing a piano in the lobby or something (similarly to the gigs he would do as a young man, at restaurants, night clubs etc.), but at least there was some connection there -- albeit slightly off-grid.

[crocodile 9,338]

I might be wrong but I do seem to recall some mention of him working last minute on something from Attack of the Clones at a hotel. Possibly the revised finale? I might be misremembering though... That was over 20 years ago after all!

 

Karol

[Marian Schedenig 10,817]

6 minutes ago, crocodile said:

I might be misremembering though... That was over 20 years ago after all!

 

Next you're going to tell us that Luke and Leia was written for ESB…