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


APBez

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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.

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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!  

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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.

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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.  

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  • 3 weeks later...

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.

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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

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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…

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