At 1:14 PM -0500 1/3/05, Andrew Stiller wrote:
Drafted in 1952, Williams was assigned to the United States Air Force, and as a part of his tour of duty he conducted and arranged music for service bands. After his discharge in 1954, he spent a year at the Julliard School of Music as a piano student of Rosina Lhevinne.
I had no idea he was so old! I thought he was of our generation--largely because I never heard of him prior to _Star Wars_.
Well, it seems from the bios posted to the list that we cover a good many generations.
What I find interesting in the above bio is how much things
changed in just a few years. My draft number came up in 1957,
and I spent 4 years in the USAF Band. There were no 2-year
enlistments by that time; you had to go into the army for 2 years or
opt to enlist in the navy or air force for 4 (both with reserve
commitments stretching the total to 8 years; it was called Universal
Military Training). And I wonder about the "conducting"
credit. By 1957, at least, service bands were conducted only by
officers (Glen Miller was either a captain or a major in the Army Air
Corps), and not enlisted men. (Well, I can think of one
exception. The Airmen of Note was conducted by a seargent, so
the associated jazz bands may have been handled differently.)
Arranging I can certainly believe. Sam Nestico was in the USAF
band when I was, and I believe had transferred from the Marine Band
when his previous enlistment was up, so he is probably of an age with
JW.
We just graduated a talented young man in music education.
He was in our Corps of Cadets and ROTC, and was commissioned an Air
Force 2nd Liutenant when he graduated, but he was caught in a Catch
22. He couldn't PLAY in a service band because he was an
officer, but he couldn't CONDUCT a service band because he didn't have
a masters degree in music!
Anyway, it's nice to learn that JW was just a regular guy and did
the same things a lot of us did before he became a celebrity.
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
_______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
