Johnny Williams (drummer)
Encyclopedia
Johnny Williams was an American jazz
drummer and percussionist from the early 1930s to the late 1950s. In New York and Hollywood he worked on radio, in films, and as a recording artist.
He is the father of legendary Hollywood film score composer John Williams
, and the grandfather of singer Joseph Williams and drummer Mark Towner Williams.
s in the New York-based CBS
Radio orchestra in the early 1930s, and achieved stardom as drummer for the Raymond Scott
Quintette from 1936 to 1939. Despite the name, the band was a sextet. Formed by Scott from the ranks of the CBS
orchestra, the Quintette was an overnight sensation at the end of 1936, thanks to Scott's eccentric approach to jazz and idiosyncratic titles (e.g., "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals" and "War Dance for Wooden Indians," both of which showcase the drummer's virtuosity). Williams contributed a very animated style of percussion, which provided a rhythmic foundation for the comic design of Scott's compositions. In addition to the standard jazz drum and cymbal
setup, Williams used a lot of cowbell, wood block
, and tuned percussion. He had a flawless sense of timing, and was able to execute faithfully the abrupt tempo shifts of Scott's dynamic arrangements. Existing film clips of the Quintette show Williams displaying a high degree of showmanship, including stick twirls, tom-tom rides, and popgun rim-shots. His theatrical, effects-heavy approach predated and no doubt influenced the hyperactive style of musician-comedian
Spike Jones
.
Scott was a notorious perfectionist
, demanding retake after retake in the rehearsal studio. About this process, Williams told historian Michèle Wood, "All he ever had was machines, only we had names." Williams, explaining Scott's (commercially successful) penchant for recording rehearsals and using the reference discs to develop and finalize his compositions, said, "He didn't write anything, but he edited everything. We would work these things up and we would never change them, ever. We had to do them note for note. It was highly unsatisfactory, and it sold like hell."
Scott painted "portraits in jazz," or "descriptive jazz"—what he felt were musical vignettes of colorful evocations, such as "Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner" and "Celebration on the Planet Mars." Williams considered it undignified, but admittedly lucrative. "We really didn't want to do any of it," he told Wood. "We thought [it] was descriptive, all right, but not jazz, because jazz is right now, not memorized note for note. And after all this compulsive rehearsal, suddenly it all caught on and we were making more money than anybody else in town, all thanks to him. We were doing records, public appearances, making movies, everything." Williams also acknowledged a performance dividend. "All that discipline helped," he told Wood. "It had to. I developed a technique way beyond what I'd had."
The Quintette recorded for the Master, Brunswick, and Columbia labels.
When Scott went to Hollywood in late 1937 to work in motion pictures, Williams accompanied the bandleader and appeared on camera with the Quintette in the films Happy Landing
and Ali Baba Goes to Town
. Although he does not appear on camera, his drumming is heard with the Quintette in the films Nothing Sacred
, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
, Sally, Irene and Mary, and Just Around the Corner
.
Scott and his band returned to New York in 1938, allegedly due to the leader's disgust at Hollywood culture ("They think everything is 'wonderful'," he told an interviewer). After dissolving his Quintette in 1939, Scott formed a swing-fashioned big band
. Williams remained with the bandleader for at least one incarnation of Scott's newly constituted orchestra
. (Scott re-formed the Raymond Scott Quintet [sic] in 1948, but Williams was not involved.)
, Tommy Dorsey
, Vincent Lopez
, Leo Reisman
, Jacques Renard, and Alfonso D'Artega
. He also drummed for singer Kate Smith
's radio program and in Mark Warnow
's orchestra on the long-running radio program Your Hit Parade
in the 1930s and '40s. (Note: Warnow was Scott's older brother.)
When Your Hit Parade moved to California in 1948, Williams relocated to the west coast. In Hollywood he found session work in films, performing for Columbia Pictures
in soundtrack orchestras for such films as On the Waterfront
, Picnic, and From Here to Eternity
. In the 1953 film Let's Do It Again, he "ghost-drummed" for actor Ray Milland.
Williams recorded at least twice under his own name, as Johnny Williams and His Swing Sextet (1937, Variety Records) and Drummer Man Johnny Williams and His Boys (1939, Vocalion Records
). These recordings reflect the standard Dixieland
-swing style of the period, rather than the Scott novelty approach.
.
His wife was named Esther (not to be confused with actress Esther Williams
).
In a 2008 interview with Stan Warnow (Raymond Scott's son, a filmmaker) and Jeff Winner (of RaymondScott.com), John Williams explained that his father was also an expert marksman
who won national awards in pistol shooting. "He made his own ammunition
," said John, "We had a target range in our basement in Queens where he practiced for pistol competitions." Williams was a marine instructor during World War II, specializing in the use of the Colt .45
handguns. An early Raymond Scott composition on which Williams fired a loaded pistol on microphone in the pre-Quintette days was a novelty entitled "Duet For Pistol and Piano." In one surviving shellac of a live radio program where this number was featured, Williams had to improvise rimshot
s to simulate the gunshots after the pistol he was firing failed.
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
drummer and percussionist from the early 1930s to the late 1950s. In New York and Hollywood he worked on radio, in films, and as a recording artist.
He is the father of legendary Hollywood film score composer John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
, and the grandfather of singer Joseph Williams and drummer Mark Towner Williams.
The Raymond Scott Quintette
Williams played drumDrum
The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
s in the New York-based CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
Radio orchestra in the early 1930s, and achieved stardom as drummer for the Raymond Scott
Raymond Scott
Raymond Scott was an American composer, band leader, pianist, engineer, recording studio maverick, and electronic instrument inventor....
Quintette from 1936 to 1939. Despite the name, the band was a sextet. Formed by Scott from the ranks of the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
orchestra, the Quintette was an overnight sensation at the end of 1936, thanks to Scott's eccentric approach to jazz and idiosyncratic titles (e.g., "Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals" and "War Dance for Wooden Indians," both of which showcase the drummer's virtuosity). Williams contributed a very animated style of percussion, which provided a rhythmic foundation for the comic design of Scott's compositions. In addition to the standard jazz drum and cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
setup, Williams used a lot of cowbell, wood block
Wood block
A woodblock is essentially a small piece of slit drum made from a single piece of wood and used as a percussion instrument. It is struck with a stick, making a characteristically percussive sound....
, and tuned percussion. He had a flawless sense of timing, and was able to execute faithfully the abrupt tempo shifts of Scott's dynamic arrangements. Existing film clips of the Quintette show Williams displaying a high degree of showmanship, including stick twirls, tom-tom rides, and popgun rim-shots. His theatrical, effects-heavy approach predated and no doubt influenced the hyperactive style of musician-comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
Spike Jones
Spike Jones
Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brothers cartoon characters, performed a drunken, hiccuping verse for 1942's "Clink! Clink! Another Drink"...
.
Scott was a notorious perfectionist
Perfectionism (psychology)
Perfectionism, in psychology, is a belief that a state of completeness and flawlessness can and should be attained. In its pathological form, perfectionism is a belief that work or output that is anything less than perfect is unacceptable...
, demanding retake after retake in the rehearsal studio. About this process, Williams told historian Michèle Wood, "All he ever had was machines, only we had names." Williams, explaining Scott's (commercially successful) penchant for recording rehearsals and using the reference discs to develop and finalize his compositions, said, "He didn't write anything, but he edited everything. We would work these things up and we would never change them, ever. We had to do them note for note. It was highly unsatisfactory, and it sold like hell."
Scott painted "portraits in jazz," or "descriptive jazz"—what he felt were musical vignettes of colorful evocations, such as "Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner" and "Celebration on the Planet Mars." Williams considered it undignified, but admittedly lucrative. "We really didn't want to do any of it," he told Wood. "We thought [it] was descriptive, all right, but not jazz, because jazz is right now, not memorized note for note. And after all this compulsive rehearsal, suddenly it all caught on and we were making more money than anybody else in town, all thanks to him. We were doing records, public appearances, making movies, everything." Williams also acknowledged a performance dividend. "All that discipline helped," he told Wood. "It had to. I developed a technique way beyond what I'd had."
The Quintette recorded for the Master, Brunswick, and Columbia labels.
When Scott went to Hollywood in late 1937 to work in motion pictures, Williams accompanied the bandleader and appeared on camera with the Quintette in the films Happy Landing
Happy Landing
Happy Landing was a 1962 R&B recording by Motown Records singing group The Miracles , issued on that label's Tamla Records subsidiary label . It was recorded in November of 1962, and appeared on their album The Fabulous Miracles...
and Ali Baba Goes to Town
Ali Baba Goes to Town
Ali Baba Goes to Town is a 1937 movie starring Eddie Cantor, Tony Martin, and Roland Young. Cantor plays a hobo named Aloysius "Al" Babson, who walks into the camp of a movie company that is making the Arabian Nights. He falls asleep and dreams he is in Baghdad as an advisor to the Sultan...
. Although he does not appear on camera, his drumming is heard with the Quintette in the films Nothing Sacred
Nothing Sacred (film)
Nothing Sacred is a 1937 Technicolor screwball comedy film made by Selznick International Pictures and distributed by United Artists. It was directed by William A. Wellman and produced by David O. Selznick, from a screenplay credited to Ben Hecht, based on a story by James H. Street...
, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is a classic American 1903 children's novel by Kate Douglas Wiggin that tells the story of Rebecca Rowena Randall and her two stern aunts in the village of Riverboro, Maine. Rebecca's joy for life inspires her aunts, but she faces many trials in her young life, gaining...
, Sally, Irene and Mary, and Just Around the Corner
Just Around the Corner
Just Around the Corner is a 1938 American musical film directed by Irving Cummings. The screenplay by Ethel Hill, Darrell Ware, and J. P. McEvoy was based on the novel Lucky Penny by Paul Girard Smith. The film focuses on the tribulations of little Penny Hale and her architect father after he is...
.
Scott and his band returned to New York in 1938, allegedly due to the leader's disgust at Hollywood culture ("They think everything is 'wonderful'," he told an interviewer). After dissolving his Quintette in 1939, Scott formed a swing-fashioned big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
. Williams remained with the bandleader for at least one incarnation of Scott's newly constituted orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
. (Scott re-formed the Raymond Scott Quintet [sic] in 1948, but Williams was not involved.)
Professional history
Throughout his association with Scott, Williams continued as an in-demand drummer for the CBS radio network. His assignments included playing for bands led by Benny GoodmanBenny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
, Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
, Vincent Lopez
Vincent Lopez
Vincent Lopez was an American bandleader and pianist.Vincent Lopez was born of Portuguese immigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York and was leading his own dance band in New York City by 1917...
, Leo Reisman
Leo Reisman
Leo Reisman was a violinist and bandleader in the 1920s and 1930s. Born and reared in Boston, Reisman studied violin as a young man, and formed his own band in 1919. He became famous for having over 80 hits on the popular charts during his career. Jerome Kern called Reisman's orchestra "The...
, Jacques Renard, and Alfonso D'Artega
Alfonso D'Artega
Alfonso D'Artega , often known simply as D'Artega, was a songwriter, conductor, arranger and actor. His song "In the Blue of the Evening", co-written with Tom Adair, was a number one hit for the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in 1943.D'Artega was born in Silao, Guanajuato, Mexico. His family emigrating to...
. He also drummed for singer Kate Smith
Kate Smith
Kathryn Elizabeth "Kate" Smith was an American Popular singer, best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Smith had a radio, television, and recording career spanning five decades, which reached its pinnacle in the 1940s.Smith was born in Greenville, Virginia...
's radio program and in Mark Warnow
Mark Warnow
Mark Warnow was a noted violinist and orchestra conductor, who performed widely on radio in the 1930s and 1940s. He was the older brother of composer/bandleader Raymond Scott Mark Warnow (April 10, 1900 - October 17, 1949) was a noted violinist and orchestra conductor, who performed widely on...
's orchestra on the long-running radio program Your Hit Parade
Your Hit Parade
Your Hit Parade, is an American radio and television music program that was broadcast from 1935 to 1955 on radio, and seen from 1950 to 1959 on television. It was sponsored by American Tobacco's Lucky Strike cigarettes. During this 24-year run, the show had 19 orchestra leaders and 52 singers or...
in the 1930s and '40s. (Note: Warnow was Scott's older brother.)
When Your Hit Parade moved to California in 1948, Williams relocated to the west coast. In Hollywood he found session work in films, performing for Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
in soundtrack orchestras for such films as On the Waterfront
On the Waterfront
On the Waterfront is a 1954 American drama film about union violence and corruption among longshoremen. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb and Karl Malden. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard...
, Picnic, and From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity
From Here to Eternity is a 1953 drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and based on the novel of the same name by James Jones. It deals with the troubles of soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra and Ernest Borgnine stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the...
. In the 1953 film Let's Do It Again, he "ghost-drummed" for actor Ray Milland.
Williams recorded at least twice under his own name, as Johnny Williams and His Swing Sextet (1937, Variety Records) and Drummer Man Johnny Williams and His Boys (1939, Vocalion Records
Vocalion Records
Vocalion Records is a record label active for many years in the United States and in the United Kingdom.-History:Vocalion was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Piano Company of New York City, which introduced a retail line of phonographs at the same time. The name was derived from one of their...
). These recordings reflect the standard Dixieland
Dixieland
Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...
-swing style of the period, rather than the Scott novelty approach.
Personal life
While playing in the CBS Orchestra in New York during the 1930s, Williams studied architecture at Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
.
His wife was named Esther (not to be confused with actress Esther Williams
Esther Williams
Esther Jane Williams is a retired American competitive swimmer and MGM movie star.Williams set multiple national and regional swimming records in her late teens as part of the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team...
).
In a 2008 interview with Stan Warnow (Raymond Scott's son, a filmmaker) and Jeff Winner (of RaymondScott.com), John Williams explained that his father was also an expert marksman
Marksman
A marksman is a person who is skilled in precision, or a sharpshooter shooting, using projectile weapons, such as with a rifle but most commonly with a sniper rifle, to shoot at long range targets...
who won national awards in pistol shooting. "He made his own ammunition
Ammunition
Ammunition is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery. The collective term for all types of ammunition is munitions...
," said John, "We had a target range in our basement in Queens where he practiced for pistol competitions." Williams was a marine instructor during World War II, specializing in the use of the Colt .45
Colt Single Action Army
The Colt Single Action Army is a single action revolver with a revolving cylinder holding six metallic cartridges. It was designed for the U.S...
handguns. An early Raymond Scott composition on which Williams fired a loaded pistol on microphone in the pre-Quintette days was a novelty entitled "Duet For Pistol and Piano." In one surviving shellac of a live radio program where this number was featured, Williams had to improvise rimshot
Rimshot
A rimshot is the sound produced by hitting the rim and the head of a drum simultaneously, with a drum stick. Rimshots are usually played to produce a more accented note, and are typically played loudly. However, soft rim shots are possible....
s to simulate the gunshots after the pistol he was firing failed.
External links
- The Raymond Scott Quintette, 1937 photo
- Twilight in Turkey, performed by the Raymond Scott Quintette (in costume), 1937, featuring Johnny Williams on drums, from the film Ali Baba Goes to TownAli Baba Goes to TownAli Baba Goes to Town is a 1937 movie starring Eddie Cantor, Tony Martin, and Roland Young. Cantor plays a hobo named Aloysius "Al" Babson, who walks into the camp of a movie company that is making the Arabian Nights. He falls asleep and dreams he is in Baghdad as an advisor to the Sultan...
- War Dance For Wooden Indians, performed by the Raymond Scott Quintette, 1938, featuring Johnny Williams on drums, from the film Happy Landing