Here’s French hornist/podcast interviewer Sarah Willis’s 2016 interview with John and key members of his own eponymous orchestra where his technique in bringing out “The Hollywood Sound” is discussed. Discussion of his string technique with Sarah and JWO’s first violinist starts at 5:40.
4 August 2018. See you soon, my angel.
From August, 2018. Cantara, former ASCAP solfeggist and 70s porn actress turned memoirist, has fallen hopelessly in love with a man at the other end of the world, an English, middle-ranking orchestra conductor—who plays, on the side, Golden Age of Hollywood music and The Great American Songbook—by the name of John Wilson.
Not because he’s a fellow creator (he doesn’t create, but reconstructs, orchestrates and arranges the music of others)—not because of his looks (he’s peaky, scrawny, blinky; his gray-green eyes lack luster; he’s got a facial tic, pores like craters, lousy posture, enormous feet, the limbs of a stick insect and the hands of a hod carrier; his nose is an equilateral triangle; his famous cleft chin, supposedly his best feature, always looks slightly askew; his ultra-short mousy hair can’t conceal the fact he’s already going gray; he sweats like a stevedore on the podium; and for the past few years he’s taken to wearing geek glasses)—and certainly not for his intellect (his fatuous pronouncement about the needlessness of lyrics in The Great American Songbook makes me want to smack the back of his head like the whippersnapper he is and send him home with a note).
So what is it about him?* I’ve only been aware of his existence since 30 April and in love with him since 4 May, 2018; since then my feelings have been an insane mixture of tenderness, gratitude, annoyance, and lust. The tenderness I understand: I’ve spent enough time in Hollywood to understand the position he’s in… As far as gratitude, here’s his concert version of “The Trolley Song” using the original 1944 orchestration(!)— thank you thank you thank you, John. Even the raging lust I get.
But whenever John gets himself in the way of the music it drives me nuts. It’s crystal clear to me the times he does this because I’m in love with him, dammit, and because he’s a musician I pay attention to the music. Truth to tell, the only times John really gets himself in the way are when he’s conducting his own hand-picked group which is dedicated mostly to music from Golden Hollywood & The Great American Songbook, and cannily named The John Wilson Orchestra.
Listen to John’s new orchestra the SINFONIA OF LONDON here
Whether he gets himself in the way indeliberately or on purpose I cannot entirely tell, but I’m starting to. With a little patience he isn’t that hard to read, my bonny John Wilson. After countless times listening to his recordings and broadcasts; pouring over his interviews; watching him conduct (in video clips, mainly from the annual BBC Proms); watching him conduct other orchestras besides his own (ditto); and, most important, learning to separate the showman from the musician, I’m starting to understand his type of intelligence and his musical capability, which is actually pretty sizeable. His ear (the way he hears things, not his purported perfect pitch) is intriguing and his industriousness is admirable. I am definitely not buying into the PR excess—he is not “a superstar”, “a guru”, “charismatic”, “legendary”, “a conducting icon” or, God help us, as proclaimed by the BBC, “the nation’s favorite” (!!!). But his musicianship at times is kiiind of brilliant.
* Update 10 August 2019: I’ve just read up on what it is about him, and now I’ve got science to back me up. It’s John’s fault.
Anyroad, like a good Dr Watson I have compiled a list:
Listen to John’s new orchestra the SINFONIA OF LONDON here
JOHN WILSON – HIS LIMITS (Updated September 2021)
Knowledge of/affinity for/talent with:
All the rest is just Cantara trying to sort out where bonny John fits into her inner life. Which as it turns out is in every nook, every cranny…
Cleansing my aural memory of John Wilson’s recording of Legrand’s “Chanson de Maxence” (in English clumsily rendered as “You Must Believe in Spring” or some such) in his awful 2000 album, Orchestral Jazz, with Anne Sofie van Otter‘s 2010 version (Brad Mehldau, pianist). Bonny John conducts his eponymous orchestra in an arrangement by Richard Rodney Bennett, who had absolutely no feel for this song. With such a strong melody (reminiscent of Fauré) and strong lyrics, all it needs is a strong emotive singer and a backup piano. I note with some distress that John himself did some other arrangements in this album, particularly for “Miss Otis Regrets”. With no lyrics! What the hell good is such a hilarious song without the words???
Je l'ai cherchée partout j'ai fait le tour du monde De Venise à Java de Manille à Angkor De Jeanne à Victoria de Vénus en Joconde Je ne l'ai pas trouvée et je la cherche encore Je ne connais rien de lui et pourtant je le vois J'ai inventé son nom j'ai entendu sa voix J'ai dessiné son corps et j'ai peint son visage Son portrait et l'amour ne font plus qu'une image
John and The JWO are okay, but just okay. I suppose when he was 28 my bonny’s loftiest ambition was to be the next Sidney Torch.
I don’t think a clip exists, but 3 Preludes was on the program of The John Wilson Orchestra’s 2015 BBC Proms show Salute to Sinatra—yes I swear, that was the theme of that show which featured Seth MacFarlane, on account of he can sing like Brian the Dog. The connection is that the version my clever John and his orchestra played is the Nelson Riddle arrangement of Gershwin’s 3 Preludes, Nelson Riddle having been one of Frank Sinatra’s most important musical collaborators. Such a stretch, pet.
But here’s Riddle’s arrangement…and here’s George Gershwin himself. Compare and contrast.
Reprint, originally published 2012 at Academia.edu. PDF download available here.
EXTRA! Mister Grumble and Stephen Gyllenhaal in Brentwood, 2007
From Simona Wing to Gerard Damiano to Helen Wood to Andre Previn to John Wilson—Cantara’s three degrees from her beloved conductor.
Give a Girl a Break (trailer here) is a US 1953 musical comedy film starring Debbie Reynolds and the dance team of Marge and Gower Champion. Helen Wood, Richard Anderson, Kurt Kaszner and a young Bob Fosse have featured roles. At only 88 minutes, Give a Girl a Break shows residual elements of the big project it started out to be, with a passable score by Burton Lane and Ira Gershwin, direction by Stanley Donen, and musical direction by Andre Previn.
Degree rule: You have to’ve personally worked with the person in the next degree. I worked with Damiano in his 1981 porn classic Beyond Your Wildest Dreams as Simona Wing; Damiano wrote and directed 1972’s Deep Throat, which Helen Wood (as Dolly Sharp) was in; Helen Wood co-starred in the musical Give a Girl a Break, on which the musical director was Andre Previn; Previn worked on the 2012 Proms My Fair Lady with my beloved John Wilson.
Above Marge, Debbie and Helen: The overture to the 2012 Proms My Fair Lady, with John conducting The John Wilson Orchestra in his own arrangement of Andre Previn’s orchestration of the film score.
GIVE A GIRL A BREAK is available in its entirety here
The Philippines have never won the gold in 97 years until now—consequently, we get to hear The Philippine National Anthem (Julián Felipe-José Palma, 1899; lyrics below) played at the Olympics for the very first time. So I went over to YT to find a good version of the national anthem (which I once used to be able to sing not only in English but Tagalog learned phonetically) and I found THIS on YT and it’s—it’s—well, it’ll make you want to swell with pride if you’re a true Pinoy. Really. It’ll knock your socks off. For all you others: This is a very tuneful, very singable national anthem entitled “Lupang Hinirang” and it’s placed very dramatically and effectively in this short produced by the big broadcast company in the PI.
Bayang magiliw
Perlas ng silanganan
Alab ng puso
Sa dibdib mo’y buhay
Lupang Hinirang
Duyan ka nang magiting
Sa manlulupig
Di ka pasisiil
Sa Dagat at bundok sa simoy
At sa langit mo’y bughaw
May dilag ang tula
At awit sa paglayang minamahal
Ang kislap ng watawat mo’y tagumpay na nagniningning
Ang bituin at araw niya’y kailanpama’y di magdidilim
Lupa ng araw ng luwalhati’t pagsinta
Buhay ay langit sa piling mo
Aming ligaya nang pag
May mang-aapi
* Battle of Mactan 1521
* GomBurZa 1872
* Revolution of 1896
* Jose Rizal 1861-1896
* First Republic 1898
* Declaration of Independence 1898
* War With America 1898-1913
* Battle of Manila 1899
* Commonwealth 1935
* War With Japan 1941-1945
* EDSA 1986
Here’s the audio of the short above
EXTRA! My Filipiniana on YouTube
And right around the time in history James “Smiling Cobra” Aubrey was turning MGM’s historical music scores into LA landfill and my beloved John Wilson was home in Gateshead falling out of his baby chair in excitement over the brand-new BBC news theme, forty-five years ago today—even down to the day of the week—I fled Minneapolis for New York and took a shared room at Sage House, a genteel women-only boarding house on 49 West 9th Street in Greenwich Village, New York.
With 2 meals a day included it came out to $33 a week. You read that right. A place in Greenwich Village, breakfast and dinner, for thirty-three dollars a week. Try to imagine the mischief I got into with all the money I had left over from my weekly paycheck from my first job as a solfeggist at ASCAP, that it’s summer in NYC, it’s 1973, I’m eighteen, cute as a button and old enough to drink, and gorgeous men are everywhere. And imagine too that I’m singing a song (in my heart and sometimes aloud while bounding down the street) that every American girl of my generation inspired by Julie Andrews sang:
I have confidence in confidence alone Besides which you see I have con-fi-dence in meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Above my old abode: “I Have Confidence” sung by Sierra Boggess backed by John Wilson and His Eponymous Orchestra , 2010.
John dear,
Above this 2023 NYT news shot of my shining, desired one: The entire 2022 BBC Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall, John and his Sinfonia of London performing British Classics: Ralph Vaughan Williams – Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis; Huw Watkins – Flute Concerto; Arnold Bax – Tintagel; William Walton – Partita for Orchestra; Edward Elgar – Enigma Variations Oh John, you and Elgar together again…
On three out of your last five birthdays, awful things happened in my country that couldn’t be ignored (the worst happening on your 48th in my own old neighborhood) so I’m sorry I didn’t have anything amusing to post after your 47th. Because you share the same day of birth as my father (you were born the year he died) I had thought what I’d be doing is alternating birthday congrats to you with memories of my dad, like this one…
Well, that didn’t work out. Things and events are crowding so fast…and I can’t catch up to the connection—association—context of it all fast enough…
But there is one thing I want you to remember through all this global mishegoss: I’m still in love with you as much as I ever have been. In fact the more I learn about you, the more it makes me love you. Even through your clunkers, John, John / Glorious John.
If you were my boyfriend and you had a struggling rock group, there’d be posters on every lamppost in San Francisco. But you (and your people) must have figured that out by now.
I have been memorizing this room. In the future, in my memory, I shall live a great deal in this room.
Find this scene on my YT channel here and apologies for the quality of the vid but it was the best available. Underscoring for Mamoulian’s classic is by the esteemed 1st music director at MGM, Herbert Stothart. Stothart’s adorable “Donkey Serenade” is featured in The MGM Jubilee Overture, written in 1954 by 2nd music director Johnny Green and restored to the repertoire by my bonny. I’m moving to your rhythm, John.
This nine-minute medley sung by Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett, called “History of Musical Comedy”, is a variety-show tour de force enough for the first six minutes; then at 6:00 it rises to high art in the most affecting soprano duet in the repertoire of American lyric theater.
From 6 Romances by Pyotr Tchaikovsky: No.6 “None But the Lonely Heart”
Nadezhda: Who knows what would have happened here? I probably would’ve worked in a factory…managed a factory. (Mikhail nods) You might’ve…hm. (he glances at her; she glances at him) Maybe we would’ve met… On a bus… (he smiles slightly; she looks out at the night landscape) …They’ll be okay.
Mikhail: They’ll remember us. And…they’re not kids anymore. We raised them.
Nadezhda: (nodding) Yes.
Mikhail: (beat) Feels strange.
Nadezhda: (looking at him) привыкнем.
(He looks at her; together they look out at the lights of nighttime Moscow)
EXTRA! Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, complete with organ and chorus, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy
"I'll Be Dead Before You Break My Heart" 