PPP226: Musical Mystery Opus 2, No. 3 “An Unsung Hero” (If you’ll pardon the pun)

Since this is a musical mystery, I’m going to shed light on our hero through five clues. Pay attention because when we are done, you will learn that the five clues are actually a mystery within the mystery. How soon before you know who our hero is? All will be revealed within the next 10 minutes.

Remember when I told you J. T.’s grandfather ran a department store? I wonder if they sold musical instruments in that store or if they just had loads of pots and pans to bang together because the owner’s son, Johnny (J.T.’s father) grew up to make a name for himself by playing percussion for a time in the Raymond Scott Jazz Quintet, which, incidentally, had six members but Raymond liked the sound of quintet better than sextet. This may have been the beginning of J.T.’s musical interests and talent.

Mixing music with his work responsibilities seems to be J.T.’s modus operandi. While studying at UCLA, he included private composition lessons with his core curriculum. He attended one semester at Los Angeles City College because they had a studio jazz band; a decision that I imagine made J.T.’s father proud. Incidentally, Los Angeles City College boasts many celebrity alumni, including a couple of fellows named Mark and Morgan, who would encounter J.T.’s unsung hero in years to come.

Donning his U. S. Air Force military uniform, J.T. once again included in his time of service and work responsibilities the chance to make music with fellow airmen. He requested and was granted the opportunity to serve in the U.S. Air Force band where he was able to play piano and brass instruments like trombone and trumpet. J.T. was also able to put his music arranging talent to good use, beefing up existing scores or creating new arrangements for the players that were in the group. As J. T. put it, “I discovered that I could be useful in writing arrangements for our band, though published arrangements were available, I could perhaps advance the harmonizations, add some tricks, or have some fun with the personnel….I remember a situation when we had a wind quintet and the available music was not great so I said, ‘Well, I’ll write a wind quintet.'” There was another case when J. T. was stationed in Newfoundland in which he was granted special permission to write a short film score for the St. John Province of Newfoundland. As a military serviceman, he couldn’t accept payment for this project, of course, but he was able to write the film score and was even allowed to use members of the U. S. Air Force band to perform the music on the film score recording.

Don’t think we’re going to forget about our unsung hero. Though I suppose that can easily happen, and usually does happen. We get so caught up in the story that we forget about one of the most important characters on the screen. However, once we leave the theater we often carry with us an earworm implanted by the very hero we overlooked, or should I say ‘overheard’. That’s an interesting play on words! To overlook something is to let it go unnoticed. To overhear something is to hear it without the speaker’s knowledge. In this case, we overhear – or do not notice with our ears – the unsung hero, yes, that’s right, the MUSIC that J. T., with full knowledge and intent, placed in our subconscious mind.

Solid, yet simple melodies permeate every film J. T. has ever scored. Col. Larry H. Lang, former conductor of the U. S. Air Force Band sat down with J. T. in 2016. In the interview Col. Lang said “There is something so human and organic and powerful about your music. I think about the melodies and how you so beautifully capture the characters…..your melodies seem to help tell their story.” J. T. says that is intentional and he labors over every note. He recognizes that moviegoers are not giving 100% of their attention to the music. He knows their attention will be drawn to dialogue, sound effects, and everything else happening visually on the screen. Because of that, he aims to create what he calls “melodic memorability”. He says, “I struggled greatly with the simplest things. If you want to get a tune that is shaped in six measures or seven notes, something that may seem simple or simply diatonic can be very very difficult.” He says creating complex layers of musical structure is actually much less difficult than to peel things away for melodic identification. “To say exactly what you mean in the fewest words you can put together, without being over-simplistic, is the hardest part of the job.”

I would say J. T. – I may as well call him John Williams at this point – is a master at his job. From the two ominous alternating bass notes of the Jaws theme to the four uplifting notes of Indiana Jones to the magical chromatic melody of Harry Potter, each simple melody captures the essence of every film, every character.