"John Williams"

Hey guys, welcome to the cold open. Hey. Anything you'd like to say? No, Will, you can't start a cold open with a yawn.

Sorry, dude.

Sean, anything to fire up the cold open with?

You want a dad joke?

Uh, yeah. Open up the book.

Okay.

Sorry, listener. Just give us one second. Welcome to our cold open and...

Did you hear about the cheese that's been working out?

I didn't. What happened?

The dude is shredded.

Welcome to SmartLess.

Smart. Less.

Less.

My name is Sean.

My name is Will. I'd love to pod with you guys. Are you guys up for podding? Sure.

Let's get somebody to get your pod on.

Let's get this podding starting. Hi, Scott.

Let's get this podding starting.

Hey, you guys.

That's a good one. I've never heard that. Thanks, guys. Let's get this podding starting.

Um, anything worth talking about in your.

I looked up right before this. I was looking up how to survive a nuclear war.

March 7,. Jason had a good one.

Uh-huh. Yeah, mark it down. Okay.

Sorry. I know.

No. Will, anything exciting in your life today? This morning?

Still just in recovery.

You want to know how to survive a nuclear war? Oh, right.

You're still trying to kick your virus.

Yeah. Yeah. Sean, what were you saying?

Do you want to know how to survive a nuclear war? Or a nuclear bomb?

Okay.

Run?

So you've got to cover your eyes and get down. And then you've got to find a basement or something.

Okay, man. And we'll be right back.

I mean.

Because I read a headline this morning when I got up. Like, you know, North Korea has like... Is ready to... You know, they're always saying whatever.

You know, we're doing a happy feel-good.

Yeah, yeah. Sorry. ...broadcast here? I'd like just to say really quick, Jason. I miss you.

Sorry. Do you want to make a statement?

I do.

I would just like to say.

If I can get in here.

Wait. Willie's got a really... We got a really fast, good joke for Jason today.

Well, about the fact that dogs can't do MRIs, but cats can.

Okay.

So here we go.

Great. Did you guys get on early?

We both watched the same TikTok video.

Oh, no. I don't have the TikTok.

Anyway.

No, I got it.

By the way, he went back and he wrote them down. Go ahead, Sean.

I know. You want to hear another one? Milk is the fastest liquid on earth. It's pasteurized before we can even see it.

Not bad.

Okay.

Anything else you want to help the people driving to finish off their car accident with?

No, because they're going to get super excited about our guest today. Uh-oh. And now listen, I love when we get a true living legend on this podcast. My guest today served our country in the Air Force, became a renowned jazz musician, and then eventually moved to Hollywood to work on some of the biggest films in motion picture history. I'm sure you're going to guess who it is right away.

Wow.

Good day, sir. This is so cool.

Unbelievable.

Hi, John.

Hello, gentlemen.

How are you today?

I just saw pictures of all three of you. Yeah. And you looked healthy to me, like three NFL players on their day off.

Yeah. That's stretching it.

So, Sean, how is it possible? you could play Oscar Levant?

Well, yeah. I don't know. It shocked us too.

Because I don't look anything like him, I know.

No, I know.

But I worked on all the things an actor should work on.

Did you research a lot of things?

I did. I read all his books. I went to the archives at the Paley Center, where they have all the old footage. And I just spent a couple days there looking at stuff. And then I downloaded some stuff on YouTube.

Did you have to go to the piano and sort of?

This is supposed to be about you, John Williams.

John, did you get a chance to see Sean do his play on Broadway? No.

No, no.

Oh, he was just incredible. I mean, you would have been very impressed with his piano playing ability. Somebody who would know what to look for. This guy is classically trained. And he did the entire Rhapsody in Blue solo on stage on a grand piano.

Now, Sean, who did the first performance of the piano concerto of Gershwin? Was it Oscar?

No, it was Gershwin, but Oscar recorded the most famous recording of it.

Oh, did he? Okay, fine.

And that's what Oscar was known for. It's a very Salieri, Mozart kind of relationship, where Oscar revered Gershwin, but could never be quite like him.

Well, the books are wonderful. His wit and the whole thing. I met him once. Oh, you did? Yes.

That's crazy.

At this audition. And it was in Mayer's office where there was a piano. And I just came in sheepishly through the back door to accompany these people and leave before the discussion started. Really? I've always adored Oscar Levant.

Yeah.

That's fantastic. He's great. He was a student of Schoenberg. Did you know that? Wow.

Oscar was.

Oh, yeah, it was a very serious conversation.

Well, Oscar was. You said you were?

No, no, no.

Oh, Oscar was. I knew that.

But how can I help you guys? What on earth can I possibly give you?

You've already done plenty by agreeing to do this.

Yeah, John, you just tipped the fact that you said that you were in Louis B. Mayer's office, which is such a mind blow. Yeah. By the way, I'm Will. It's such a pleasure to meet you.

For Tracy, he was a big studio head, like mogul.

Film executive, yeah. What were those days like? What were the people, these old sort of iconic studio heads, like, guys like Louis B. Mayer? What was your experience with gentlemen like that back in the day?

Well, of course, I really didn't have contact or access to them. I did have a relationship with Lou Wasserman, actually, but he was of a younger generation than the Warner Brothers. Jack Warner, I used to go to the previews of the Warner Brothers films that I did, and Jack Warner always went to those. And I met him three or four times at those previews, and he knew I had something to do with music. I never knew my name, so he referred to me as Beethoven.

Yeah.

Were they as showman-y and as gregarious as they're portrayed in the movies, as these guys smoking big cigars and screaming out orders and stuff like that?

I think, businessmen, more than anything, from Eastern Europe, from Brooklyn, from across the country to Hollywood, and really creating from the ground up the business that has been so wonderful all through the last century, now, of course, threatened by all kinds of forces, technology of all kinds, and worldwide production of film that not eclipses Hollywood, but it puts it in a different kind of a frame of lighting and creativity.

John, what would you say, that's an interesting point you made, what would you say, in your opinion, is the greatest threat to this wonderful film industry that has been around for so long now? What, in your view, right now, is its most imminent threat to what we've got?

Well, probably the access and the easy availability to all manner of things on film and whatever that is available at home. Right. And so the great, just to flip about it, the great impediments might be said to be traffic jams and parking lots. You know, I think going to movies has become more difficult, I think, for people, and the alternative's more easy to access.

Yeah.

But we lose something. I think there's a, the old movie theaters were kinds of sort of temples where people would gather, it was a communal connection, once a week you'd go to the movies, or twice a week, in this special atmosphere that had a spiritual vibe to it and people would collect from there. It was almost like going to church, in a way. Yeah. The proscenium, the beautiful theater and so on.

Oh, that's so interesting.

I think all of the social changes and pragmatic aspects of all of this has changed so much that I think that spiritual aspect of the experience of seeing films is largely gone, a complex series of reasons for that.

Yeah.

But I think.

From a technological perspective, have you found that you've changed, wanted to change, resisted change, had to change the way in which you think about your scores, in that when people are watching at home, for the most part, they're not in the best sound environment possible. A lot of them are watching in stereo. Some have the surround button pressed on their television, but they're not getting the kind of experience, audio-wise, that they get in a theater. Do you find that that affects the way you think about creating a balance of instruments and where they would live in the channels?

I think the answer has to be no, because when I'm working, I'm thinking of some kind of ideal that I know is ever going to be there. It makes me want to say there are other differences. I think the technologies and special effects that can be accomplished make it unnecessary to do a 10-minute, one-take, complicated dance number by Fred Astaire, where the actual performance is something that is breathtaking. We don't know that it's not edited, but we can feel that aspect of physical exertion and mastery of one's body. Same is true of singing.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Which brings me to a question I have about your process. I read somewhere that you don't read the scripts on purpose, and the first time that you're exposed to the film is the rough cut and the edit. And when you're sitting there watching the movie, whether it be Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Jaws, whatever it is, Indiana Jones, do you –.

Keep going.

I know, it's just unbelievable. Are you crafting a melody in your head as you're watching it, and then is that the melody that we actually end up hearing? or how does that process work for you?

Or is there temp in there?

It's good, if possible, not to even read a script or see anything until the thing has been edited, when we can form first impressions that will lead us in our work more effectively than almost anything else. You read a book, you cast it, you develop the atmospheres and so on, and you can be very disappointed if you see a director's impression of what that would be.

Yeah.

Or delighted and surprised. also. It's not always possible. We have to discuss certain things with the directors, maybe before it's been finished. Your second question about, maybe I can call it thematic inspiration, if you like, that is not something I just pick up immediately when I see the film.

Is it true that when you did Jaws, E, F, E, F, E, F, E, F, that Spielberg thought you were kidding? Is that true? Is that true?

It is true.

Oh right, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Right.

And he looked at me and said, really? You think that could work? I thought maybe I had lost my mind. And I don't really remember the conversation, but it must have been something like, well, Stephen, I think when the cellos and basses and the orchestra do it, it can be very ominous.

Uh-huh.

And what is good about it is that it can be very slow. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Right. It can speed up as the shark is approaching or the red herring is approaching. Right, right.

Yeah, the horns come in there and that's an alert.

Yeah, exactly.

And we will be right back.

We're brought to you in part by ZipRecruiter. Many of us have heard the famous quote by Abraham Lincoln that says, good things come to those who wait. But that's only part of the quote. The full quote, I think, is, good things come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle. Maybe.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know, this year's gone so quickly. I mean, I'm proud. so far that I am, I think I'm slightly better at being a friend or father or husband this year. I've been trying every year to be better at that stuff.

Smartless listener, let me tell you about the Defender 110.

You know, it's interesting. you say that when you sort of pitch that to Steve and then maybe he's a little reluctant or he thinks that you're kidding. Do you notice, or have you noticed over the years, because it's such a collaborative experience working on a film and when you're working with a director, have you noticed that maybe they didn't start with, they didn't have such an appreciation of music in the same way that you do, and that they've learned, or have certain directors learned to become, that you've in fact educated them over the years and that their sense of their sophistication when it comes to approaching music has gotten much better? Sorry, this is a poorly worded question, but after working for years with Steven, have you noticed that his ability to appreciate what you're doing has gotten more...

Collaborative.

Yeah, and sophisticated.

It's a tough one, because there's so much variation in the training of these directors and the taste that they develop or don't develop, and their educations are all at a different level and from different angles, and so on. If you talk about a Bartok Violin Concerto or something, most of them will not know what that is.

Yeah, right, right, right.

He's a good partner for me.

Was he, go ahead, sorry.

There's such variation there, but I think what people truly recognize is that it's true what Bernard Herrmann said. There's no such thing as a silent film. We go back when the silence, we had the silence, we had organ or we had an orchestra. in the pit. We had somebody playing a violin, something that would animate.

Yeah, yeah.

Was the tonal shift and filmmaking shift that you both went through on Schindler's List, was that a comfortable transition for him into what was a much more pared down approach by design, I'm sure, and much more potentially, I don't know if sophisticated is the right word, but it was definitely a departure from what you guys had been doing for so long. Was that exciting to you guys, or a little scary for him maybe?

You mean the resources in Schindler's List, more chamber music, it was a smaller.

Right, yeah. A lot less single instruments at times, as opposed to a more full-bodied orchestral...

Some of the scenes were Itzhak Perlman alone, some of the most breathtaking and horrible things was just his violin. Whether it was a conscious decision to make it a more intimate chamber music kind of thing was something we must have made either unconsciously or through dialogue, I don't remember.

I'm guessing something like.

I don't think it would have worked quite well.

Right, right.

So we stayed with Itzhak Perlman, a much better idea.

You mentioned earlier the magic of a live performance, and what a shame it is that the audience can't truly enjoy that, because they can't fully trust it because of the process of putting together a score. But one of the greatest cultural things I find in Los Angeles, of which there aren't many, I think everybody admits, is at the Hollywood Bowl. when they run a movie on the big screen and they pull all the music out and they have the LA Phil do it and oftentimes you'll conduct that. But so for Tracy, all the music you hear, take Jaws, for example, if you pulled all the music out of it and you just watched the movie with all the dialogue and sound effects, that's something. But the music is an enormous character in any John Williams film, and so they just pull all that music out and then they play it live with the entire symphony or the entire orchestra.

Yeah, it feels like if you miss one beat.

Well, there's energy too, right?

Yeah, it's just stunning. I love it.

I like doing it. Yes, it is fun. I also like not doing it. Meaning I can play the score for the audience in the theater or at the bowl without the film, without the distraction of the film, and I can describe to the audience they're about to hear the kind of virtuosity they're going to hear in action scenes and so on, where the music is extremely difficult to play. It's a virtuoso level which, when you watch the film, you can't appreciate it.

Wait, talk about things that are difficult to play. We might have to cut this, but I try to get the end credits music to E.T. and you can't find it. It's not published anywhere. And so my husband, Scott, he scoured the internet.

It is difficult, yeah.

It's insane. Sean, that's really good.

Sean, you knocked me out.

It's a little fast. I was usually a little bit slow.

I think you wrote it slow. I think you wrote it slow. It is a little fast.

Sean, take the note, okay?

It's a little fast.

Take the note from John Williams for Christ's sake.

But now tell people the story of the last 15 minutes of E.

Well, you remember, the last 15 minutes started with the bike chase.

That's right.

The police chasing the kids trying to get E.

That's hysterical.

And they land and the spaceship lands and E.

And he offered to recut the film?

And he said, I will just recut the film to the track.

To your music.

Which is what he did. Yeah, which is crazy. And I really believe that there's a kind of a, this is not a rabbi praising himself. There's something operatic about that last 10 minutes. Yeah.

Right. Yes. Yeah. Gosh. I love that.

The right fit for it. If I can match the power of what's on the screen with the right music.

Have you ever been intimidated in that way?

He's like, no, look at me. Yes.

Every film.

Oh, really? Really?

Is intimidating in that way? Yeah. I can say it glibly.

Right. Extraordinary.

Somehow, something about that grammar. I think it was 1977, and I had done first Star Wars and Close Encounters the same year. Wow. Talk about a head turn thing. I had really struggled to get out of Star Wars and into Close Encounters.

Yeah, for sure.

And where Star Wars is all fun and fanfare and action and comedy and all the rest of that, but this was a more serious thought about our circumstance in the universe, where we are and where we may be going.

It deeply affected me as a young boy.

Me too. It was the first film that I, I was young when it came out, but I saw it, and I've seen it so many times over the years. It's one of the only films that I will rewatch consistently. And it did have that, it's funny you say that.

That one and the first Teletubbies, right? Yeah.

And Teletubbies, obviously. And also your score for the Gilligan's Island pilot.

People don't know that you wrote, that's true, actually.

That's a true story, J.

Yeah, that was really hard.

John, can the, what portion of that iconic dun-dun-dun-dun-dun was scripted and what portion of it was open to your autonomy? You know, it's sort of like, how was that described in the script? Where did the script stop and where did you pick up? And do you remember the moment that you came up with those notes?

I think the script asked for five notes, I believe. And my first sort of attempts at that, I kept saying to Stephen, it's much easier to do seven.

So six and seven were those big, heavy,

bom-bom.

That's right. No, four and five.

Break the glass.

One, two, three, four, five, bom-bom. And then there was,

bom-bom. That was a response.

That was the response. Oh, that was such a language.

So then I took some paper, I still have the papers, and I think I wrote about, I don't know, a hundred or more five note motifs in any intervallic relationship, up, down, so to speak. And no consideration of length of the notes. It isn't da-bee-bom, bom-bom. It doesn't do that. And I kept playing them, for Stephen.

Yeah, fine.

It seems fine.

But it was scripted that the strategy of the scientists were to communicate with the ship via five musical notes. Mm-hmm. Sound, yeah. So that must have been enormously-.

Intimidating.

Intimidating, right? Because you're like, it's not score, it's actually language that they've written into this script, and I've got to come up with what the language is. That's right.

Wow. That's true. Well, there's a lot of, the conversation that we now know back and forth between this computer, Truffaut and his group, and the ship's answers was much more elaborate, with color and lights. Stephen eventually correctly cut it down a little bit, so it was more manageable. Mm-hmm.

It was so primary. It was like how you would maybe elect to communicate with a child that doesn't yet know language. That's what was so powerful and evergreen and universal about it. And then, when the conversation gets going and they're getting into a conversation, I mean, John, that was just magic. how you just made that all blossom, and it just became like a celebration.

It was all written out. I have a, and then put into a computer to produce it.

But, John, it's true. What Jason says is, and again, I'm sort of going back and doubling down on this, but the idea that, Jay, and Sean too, that we as young men, we were still single digits. I was about eight when that, seven or eight when I came out, but I understood that in a way that was meant to be understood, in a way that my parents could, I could understand it emotionally. What was going on?

Leaving the theater with my mom in the parking lot, I said to her, I want to be taken, you know? And I was serious.

She said, we did too. We wanted you to, and they gave you back.

Yeah. Right?

They wouldn't take you. You're a return.

He told me that just last week.

One thing I would say at this point is that it's probably true that music is older than language. And that's deeply embedded in all of our structure. And you understood it, not linguistically, but musically or spiritually in some way. Yeah. Yeah.

We'll be right back.

This episode is sponsored in part by Liquid Death. You may have spotted your designated driver downing a tall can, but after taking a second look, you see that it's actually a can of Liquid Death. Liquid Death may look like some type of energy drink or beer, but instead it is a line of crisp, low-sugar sodas, low-sugar iced teas, and refreshing mountain spring water. But why the name Liquid Death? They're here to crush the use of single-use plastic bottles with their recyclable cans.

All right. Back to the show.

John, you know, all of your music, every single time, like we're talking, we see E.

Oh, that's so difficult. Beethoven, 9th, Ode to Joy. I start there, I guess. Yeah. One thing I wanted to add about the five-note signal, which is, after the fact, rationalization, but you have what is re-do-do-do-sol, okay?

Right, right.

If I do da-da-da-ba-bom,

that's 5-1.

That's sol.

Da-da-da-da-dum.

So you're soliciting a response. Right.

Da-da-da-da-da-dum.

Would be the end. Would be a period.

What this does is de-da-da-ah-ah, maybe.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's really interesting, yeah.

You're asking for a response from the ship.

It's what you remembered as a child somehow that you know, it's not a sentence, it's part of a sentence.

It's an ellipses, yeah.

But it's not a complete sentence.

I think once you realize that, there's great power in the fact that it doesn't settle.

Yeah.

No, that makes a lot of sense. You can almost, it's a musical version of a hand being left out. An olive branch. Reaching for someone. Yeah.

It absolutely works and you don't need to think about it.

Yeah.

It does that for us.

Yeah, I came across.

John, I have a question from my husband, Scotty, who is a self-proclaimed expert on just about everything you've ever composed and or recorded. It's true. It's totally true. He says, this is from Scotty, there's been a longstanding rumor over many years that you played piano for the soundtrack recording sessions for the film version of West Side Story. Is that true?

Yes.

Wow. So that's you on the album playing piano.

Yes. That's crazy.

Oh, wow. That is crazy. I played that in the pit a long time ago and it's really, really hard.

Yeah, it is, yeah.

Like especially the prologue is just all over the place.

Especially at a dinner theater. it was tough because you've got mashed potatoes thrown at you. Wait, wait. John, it is true.

I think a lot of Lenny's music was awkward, frankly. You played it so you know why and how that's said. But it's a lot of part of the animated energy that he left in his music.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. John, when you first started, first of all, you grew up in, tell me where you grew up again, Brooklyn or where?

Queens, Long Island.

Queens, Queens, Queens. And then, when you studied jazz as a kid, did you always know that, like? when did the love of film composing come in? Like? did you always want to do that, or were you happy being a musician on Broadway and theaters and gigs?

I never frankly planned to develop as a film composer at all. My father was, one of the things that he did in his professional life as a musician was to play in Hollywood studio orchestras. And so, as a teenager and I was a serious piano student, I really wanted to be a concert pianist. He took me to recording sessions there in the studio and I became fascinated by what people were doing to score the films, how it was orchestrated, how it was written, and so on.

Wow.

And eventually I, my job was playing piano in those orchestras. You mentioned that I played in West Side Story. I also played way back, Some Like It Hot. Do you remember that? Yeah.

That was you playing in the movie?

Yes, I played on that. And The Apartment, do you remember The Apartment? Yes.

Yeah, Promises. Promises is based on The Apartment.

And Fred Astaire, and Audrey Hepburn and Funny Face. So my introduction to writing for film was through the influence of older colleagues for whom I played the piano, and they said, can you orchestrate? And I said, yes. Well, here's a piece for next Tuesday. Orchestrate this for me, which I did.

And, as Will said, Gilligan's Island. It's crazy that you wrote music.

for that.

Were you happy to move away from television again, or did you like that? It must be such a faster process, of course, time-wise.

Well, it was such a slow, unplanned process, I must say. Really, moving from television to feature films, I think at that time in my life, it was wonderful because I had so much more time to work on the feature film. Television show, if you did Alcoa Theater, for example, it was an hour show, which you would have to write it within a week, 25 minutes of music or so, orchestrate it and conduct it.

Wow.

And so that was hard. A feature film may have 25 or 30 minutes of music, but you have six weeks to do it and a higher fee and a better orchestra and so forth. So it was a gradual step up that was evolutionary rather than anything planned.

And is it true? you can play six instruments? I read piano, bassoon, clarinet, cello, trombone, and trumpet. Is that right?

It's incorrect on all counts.

Thank you.

I tried to play all of them. I spent time with piano, of course.

Yeah. One of the things I love so much about listening to classical music is that it is the closest thing we have to a time machine, because reading that music, playing that music, note for note, verbatim, is exactly how they heard it, save the conductor adjusting time or pacing or whatever, is exactly what they heard 200, 300, 400, 500 years ago.

It's a very unifying thing.

Yeah.

One of the things that draws our humanity, congeals it, I think what you say about listening presents something very hopeful, I think, about music. We mentioned before that it's not language, it's something general. It may be in the end that Bernstein was right that it is international, it goes beyond language. We're talking about the divisions of the Oxford and fifth, and the fifth being the conjunctive. It's something that I think we have, we can place a little hope in, that.

Is there a piece of music that you've written, and now I'm going to get into the regrets, do you have something that you've listened to and you go, I wish I had just done it like this, like that you've driven home from recording, you've just scored a thing that we all are really familiar with, but when you were driving home you thought, I wish I had done it a little bit differently. Do you have any regrets in that way?

Yeah, because as actors we do that all the time.

Yeah, we do it all the time. I wish I had done this scene, sometimes you drive home and you get into your driver and you go, oh, that's what the scene was about.

Or when you see it finally up on the screen.

We all do that. I wish that could be better, or a change of note or phrase, or whatever, timing. Absolutely.

You know, John, we didn't even touch on your time in the military, the U.

Nor did we touch on golf.

Our golf, yes. But really quick, so many of your themes, especially Raiders and Superman and the Darth Vader theme, they're all very militaristic. They're very March, they feel like they, is that inspired by your time in the military, or is that just what was required for the film?

I think probably a lot of what was required at the moment.

Were they any good, those bands?

Oh, yes. Well, presently, our military bands, Marines and Army in Washington, are superb.

Superb, yeah.

The Marine band in Washington, there's a brass section that is equivalent to Chicago Symphony. I mean, it's not an exaggeration to say.

Wow, wow, that's cool.

It's absolutely fantastic. Our principal trumpet, Tom Hooten, in L.A. Philharmonic, is the former Marine trumpeter. He did, I don't know, two or three years in the Marine band there and then came here and auditioned in one Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Tell me about this wonderful routine you have at our, where Will and I are also at the same golf course that you play at, and we will see you almost every day about four or five o'clock. You'll take the cart down to the bottom of the hill in the first hole. You'll park it and then you will walk the rest of the hole, play your ball out. Do you go on to the second hole, or is that enough, and is it just a sort of a meditative, wonderful routine?

We're not stalking you, but we have seen you.

Oh, it's always such a thrill. Everybody always stops and says,

hey, look, there he is.

I've been going up there for close to 50 years. You would never know it. by the way, I play. I never did play well. It's gotten worse over the years.

You work too hard.

But I sit all day at the piano from early in the morning, lunch, just to keep working. And to keep this old bag of bones moving, I have to walk. And I'm living very close to the course, so I can go up there and walk for an hour. I try to walk for an hour, so that could be holes 1,, 2,, 3, and 4, or 1,, 2,, 6, and 7, depending on the traffic and so on.

That's good.

I get a cart so that I can stay out of the way of people like you, guys, who can really play.

Well, that first hill is kind of a bear. But you're always alone, which I love because I'm a bit of an alone guy myself. Is that on purpose, or is that just because you don't want to schedule it on anybody else?

It's very relaxing. You don't have to entertain anybody or be entertained. I can mull and meditate things flashing through my mind. But you've got to know,

Jason plays with people all the time and he never entertains them. That's very consistent. That's possible.

Also, any golf course, such a piece of beautiful work, particularly when there's nobody on it. You can see the contours of this glorious green.

It's a big park.

It's a beautiful invention. Greatest possible luxury in a crowded urban area.

It's incredible. I've been doing it, I think I've told you this, JB. I'll go sometimes on a Sunday afternoon by myself and then just strap my bag on and just walk by myself and play nine holes at sort of 3, 4 o'clock. It's my favorite thing to do.

It's just so good.

Great recreation.

Next time we see you out there, fair warning, I'm going to run up and give you a handshake, a hug, or a tip of the cap or something.

Great, I love it.

John, thank you for being here today. Thank you so much.

What a thrill.

You're such a massive inspiration to me as a pianist, as a wannabe composer in my early 20s, to everything you've ever done.

Think about all the incredible work we wouldn't have had he stopped at 60.

It should be noted, John, and Sean might not say this because he's embarrassed, but there have been, in the 20 plus years that I've been friends with Sean, there have been too many times to remember the times that he's referenced, mentioned you, referenced your music, referenced what you've done. It's absolutely incredible, and I know it's such a thrill for him that you're here, and for us as well.

I guarantee you he's 10 seconds away from tears.

Yes, he truly is. You've had a real impact on this young man's life.

And mine as well. And Scott's too. You have created my love of classical music because of what you've done.

Not true.

That was my entry point to. it, was just being such an incredible fan of movies and focusing on the music and what that does, and then discovering classical music, and I listen to it all day, every day.

There'll never be another one like you, ever.

Well, thank you, Chance, so much for this. I've enjoyed it, all three of you.

Well, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Don't even possibly think of 60 as an age to retire.

No, no, I'm just throwing it out there.

That's a teenager.

No, thank you, John.

You guys have got years and years of productive work.

From your lips.

Enriching everybody. You do, absolutely do. Enjoy. It's there. You have it.

A great, great pleasure. See you, pal.

Thank you, John.

Love you to pieces.

What a thrill.

Thank you. Bye.

That's how appropriate was that remark.

Yeah, so listen, right as we were signing off, he said to his assistant, he said, huh, so that was a pod.

Yeah.

So he's now had an experience.

Yeah, yeah.

He's just a legend.

It's crazy. I'm really taken with that interview. I could have asked him so many things. I know.

You know that Steven Spielberg played clarinet on Jaws, but he played it so bad that they put the sound into the local marching band because it wasn't great. So it's actually Steven playing, and it's some kid faking it in the movie. So funny. And then Steven played clarinet in 1941, the movie 1941.. Is that the movie?

John Williams' son is the lead singer in Toto?

Yeah.

What?

Bullshit. Yeah. Swear to God.

Why didn't you bring that up?

Joseph.

You always talk about. you have 80, I got 80 million questions I want to ask.

I did, but I didn't want, we didn't get into his family.

80 million questions.

And I wanted it to make it about him, but I guess that is about him. That's his son. That's insane. That's pretty cool. Yeah.

Oh, my God, you're right.

He's kind of got the eye of the tiger. His son.

That's not Toto. Isn't it? Eye of the tiger, no. Toto's Africa.

Well, who did Eye of the Tiger?

Survivor.

Survivor, yeah.

Really? Yeah, yeah. Guys, I've got to go, but- All right. Okay. I don't think he ever, in Jaws, I don't think he ever scored the moment when Jaws actually took a bite out of anybody.

Did he?

Bite.

Wow, you really have to go. I really do have to go.

I love you both.

And we'll see you next week on Smart List. Nobody wanted to say anything about my restraint. I had so many bits in there. Remember when he was talking about the Marines and their horn section? I was going to say, Sean, you blew a Marine.

Listener, please go to Smart List Extras.

for all of Will's bits from this week.

I had so many that I didn't do.

You can only find an organ in a church.

Good for you.

Good restraint.

Love to love. Love. Goodbye.

Bye.

SmartLess is 100% organic and artisanally handcrafted by Bennett Barbaco, Michael Grant Terry, and Rob Armgirf.

SmartLess.

If you like SmartLess, you can listen early and add free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.