DOWNLOAD THE BOOKLET

The Complete John Williams – Jazz and Film Music 1957–1962
By Olivier Julien

Today, John Williams is celebrated throughout the world as the composer of some of the most iconic film scores ever written, including Star Wars, Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Superman, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter and many others. Yet before becoming the undisputed master of the Hollywood soundtrack, Williams built an impressive career as a jazz pianist, arranger, conductor and composer. This collection brings together the earliest commercial recordings of his career and reveals the remarkable musical foundations upon which his later achievements would be built.

Born John Towner Williams on February 8, 1932, in Flushing, Queens, New York, he grew up in a musical family. His father, John Williams Sr., was a jazz drummer and percussionist who performed with the Raymond Scott Quintet and worked alongside composer Bernard Herrmann. As a child, Williams occasionally attended Herrmann’s rehearsals, an experience that left a lasting impression.

After moving to Los Angeles in 1948, Williams studied at North Hollywood High School before taking composition lessons with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. During his service in the U.S. Air Force, he played piano and brass, arranged music for military ensembles and composed his first score for a promotional documentary filmed in Newfoundland. Following his military service, he returned to New York to study piano at the Juilliard School under Rosina Lhévinne. Although he originally intended to pursue a concert career, the extraordinary artistry of pianists John Browning and Van Cliburn convinced him that composition offered a more personal path.

Returning to California in the mid-1950s, Williams quickly established himself as one of Hollywood’s most gifted studio musicians. As a pianist he recorded for composers including Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith and Elmer Bernstein, while also contributing to classic film scores such as The Apartment, West Side Story, Days of Wine and Roses and Charade. At the same time he worked as an orchestrator for leading composers including Alfred Newman, Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman.

The recordings presented in this collection document these formative years. Under the name John Towner, he released his first album, The John Towner Touch (1957), an elegant jazz piano recording featuring standards alongside one of his earliest original compositions, “Hello.” The same year he appeared on Modern Jazz Gallery with his quartet. In 1958, now billed as John Towner Williams, he recorded World on a String, a sophisticated program devoted to the songs of Harold Arlen and other American standards.

During these years Williams also became an accomplished arranger and conductor, collaborating with singers such as Frankie Laine, Vic Damone, Doris Day, Mahalia Jackson and Yvonne De Carlo. His versatility naturally led him toward television, where he composed his first original soundtrack for the CBS detective series Checkmate. Released on Columbia Records in 1961 under the name Johnny Williams, its vibrant blend of jazz, suspense and orchestral writing already reveals many characteristics that would define his later style. That same year he recorded Rhythm in Motion, another brilliant demonstration of his ability to reinterpret Broadway classics with freshness, wit and rhythmic vitality.

Throughout the 1960s Williams steadily expanded his activities, writing for television series while simultaneously composing concert works and increasingly ambitious film scores. His first Academy Award nominations arrived with Valley of the Dolls and Goodbye, Mr. Chips, followed by his first Oscar for Fiddler on the Roof. His collaboration with Steven Spielberg on The Sugarland Express, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and many subsequent films would transform the sound of modern cinema. George Lucas soon entrusted him with Star Wars, establishing Williams as one of the defining composers of the twentieth century.

Alongside his extraordinary film career, Williams has continued to compose concert music for many of the world’s leading orchestras and soloists while serving as Music Director of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980 to 1993. Winner of five Academy Awards and recipient of dozens of Grammy, BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards, he remains one of the most honored composers in motion picture history.

The recordings gathered in this anthology capture John Williams before worldwide fame, when jazz was still at the heart of his musical language. They reveal an artist already displaying the melodic invention, impeccable craftsmanship and stylistic versatility that would later make him one of the greatest composers in the history of cinema.

Olivier Julien
© Frémeaux & Associés 2026

Intégrale John Williams

Jazz et musiques de films 1957-1962

CD1

John Williams - Jazz et musiques de films

John Towner - The John Towner Touch

 1 - While We’re Young (Bill Engvick / Alec Wilder / Morty Palitz)

 2 - Zigeuner (Noël Coward)
 3 - Wait Till You See Her (Richard Rodgers / Lorenz Hart)
 4 - Bess, Oh Where’s My Bess (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin)

 5 - One Love (Leo Robin / David Rose)
 6 - The Most Beautiful Girl in the World (Richard Rodgers / Lorenz Hart)

 7 - Diane (Ernö Rapée / Lew Pollack)
 8 - I’ll Take Romance (Oscar Hammerstein II / Ben Oakland)

 9 - Dear to My Heart (Walter Gross)
10 - Hello (John Williams)
11 - Tenderly (Jack Lawrence / Walter Gross)
12 - In a Little Spanish Town (Mabel Wayne / Sam M. Lewis / Joe Young)

33 tours 30 cm Kapp Records KL 1055 - 1957

John Towner Quartet - Modern Jazz Gallery

13 - Caribe (John Towner)
14 - Spring Is Here (Richard Rodgers / Lorenz Hart)
15 - Anything Goes (Cole Porter)
16 - Aunt Orsavella (John Towner)

Double 33 tours 30 cm Kapp Records KXL 5001 - 1957

John Towner Williams - World on a String

17 - Let’s Fall in Love (Ted Koehler / Harold Arlen)
18 - Over the Rainbow (Harold Arlen / Edgar Yipsel Harburg)
19 - My Shining Hour (Harold Arlen / Johnny Mercer)
20 - Here’s What I’m Here For (Harold Arlen / Ira Gershwin)
21 - Come Rain or Come Shine (Harold Arlen / Johnny Mercer)

22 - That Old Black Magic (Harold Arlen / Johnny Mercer)
23 - Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler)

24 - Hit the Road to Dreamland (Harold Arlen / Johnny Mercer)

25 - Stormy Weather (Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler)
26 - I’ve Got the World on a String (Ted Koehler / Harold Arlen)

27 - Sleepin’ Bee (Harold Arlen / Truman Capote)

CD2

 1 - Get Happy (Harold Arlen / Ted Koehler)

33 tours 30 cm Bethlehem Records BCP-6025 - 1958

Johnny Williams - Checkmate -
Original Music from the CBS-TV Show

 2 - Theme from Checkmate (Johnny Williams)
 3 - The Isolated Pawn (Johnny Williams)
 4 - Cyanide Touch (Johnny Williams)
 5 - Far Out Place (Johnny Williams)
 6 - Hassle in the Castle (Johnny Williams)
 7 - En Passant (Johnny Williams)
 8 - The Black Knight (Johnny Williams)
 9 - Fireside Eyes (Johnny Williams)
10 - The Bishop’s Retreat (Johnny Williams)
11 - Queen’s Sacrifice (Johnny Williams)
12 - Shy Youth (Johnny Williams)
13 - The King Swings (Johnny Williams)

33 tours 30 cm Columbia CS 8391 - 1961

Johnny Williams - Rhythm in Motion

14 - Fascinatin’ Rhythm (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin)
15 - The Varsity Drag (Buddy G. DeSylva / Lew Brown / Ray Henderson)

16 - The Surrey with the Fringe on Top (Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rodgers)

17 - Let’s Do It (Cole Porter)
18 - Put on a Happy Face (Lee Adams / Charles Strouse)
19 - Whatever Lola Wants (Lola Gets) (Jerry Ross / Richard Adler)

20 - Johnny One Note (Lorenz Hart / Richard Rodgers)
21 - An Occasional Man (Hugh Martin / Ralph Blane)
22 - My Heart Belongs to Daddy (Cole Porter)
23 - Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries (Lew Brown / Ray Henderson)

24 - Sunny Disposish (Ira Gershwin / Phil Charig)
25 - Buckle Down Winsocki (Hugh Martin / Ralph Blane)

33 tours 30 cm Columbia CS 8467 - 1961

The Johnny Williams Orchestra

26 - Tuesday’s Theme (Johnny Williams)
27 - Montréal (Peter Knauer)

45 tours 17 cm Columbia 4-42516 - 1962

CD3

The Johnny Williams Orchestra -
Plays Sounds from Screen Spectaculars

 1 - Dearly Beloved (Johnny Mercer / Jerome Kern)
 2 - Pennies from Heaven (chanté par Doris Drew) (Johnny Burke / Arthur Johnson)

 3 - Theme from Picnic (Steve Allen / George Dunning)
 4 - Exactly Like You (chanté par Bob Grabeau) (Dorothy Fields / Jimmy McHugh)

 5 - Brazil (Ary Barroso / Bob Russell)
 6 - Long Ago (and Far Away) (Ira Gershwin / Jerome Kern)
 7 - On the Sunny Side of the Street (Dorothy Fields / Jimmy McHugh)

 8 - The Anniversary Song (Al Johnson / Saul Chaplin)
 9 - Put the Blame on Mame (chanté par Doris Drew) (Alan Roberts / Doris Fischer)

10 - I’m Old Fashioned (Johnny Mercer / Jerome Kern)

33 tours 30 cm Craftsmen C-8043 - 1957

The Hollywood Grand Studio Orchestra -
Porgy and Bess

11 - Overture (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin)
12 - Oh Bess, Oh Where’s My Bess (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin) (chanté par Bill Reeve)

13 - A Woman Is a Sometime Thing (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin) (chanté par Bill Reeve)

14 - Summertime (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin) (chanté par Norma Zimmer)

15 - I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’ (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin) (chanté par Bill Lee)

16 - Bess, You Is My Woman (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin) (chanté par Earl Wilkie et Marni Nixon)

17 - It Ain’t Necessarily So (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin) (chanté par Bill Reeve)

18 - My Man’s Gone Now (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin) (chanté par Norma Zimmer)

19 - There’s a Boat Dat’s Leavin’ Soon for New York (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin) (chanté par Bill Reeve)

33 tours 30 cm Mayfair Records 9641S - 1957