The pianist whose recording of "Autumn Leaves" still stands as the biggest-selling piano recording of all time was once kicked out of a conservatory for playing a pop tune.
Roger Williams remembers vividly the traumatic experience at Drake College that detoured his musical career for a few years. "My girlfriend came in and asked if I could play `When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,' " Williams said in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles studio."And I said, `Yeah, I think I could.' And I started to play it, and the head of the department walked in on me and threw me out!
"I was so angry I ran away to join the Navy. I was only 16."
Williams returns to Abravanel Hall Friday night at 8 p.m. and performs at Deer Valley Saturday at 7:30 p.m. (phone 533-NOTE for ticket information).
Williams scored high on Navy aptitude tests in mechanical ability, and then went into officer's training to study engineering, a degree he later finished at Idaho State.
However, music remained his first love, and he eventually returned to Drake to earn his master's degree in piano, then went on to Juilliard for postgraduate studies.
At Juilliard his playing style changed dramatically as he "got sidetracked" into jazz and pop. "I gave a concert at Juilliard, and during the concert I asked people to call out notes - B or C or F-sharp or whatever - and I'd improvise around those notes in the style of any composer that you could name.
"And Teddy Wilson - he played with Benny Goodman for a number of years and was the first jazz professor at Juilliard - he heard me play and said, `You put a beat to that and that's jazz.' So I said, "All right, let's take some lessons,' which I did."
Those lessons apparently took, because it wasn't long before Williams was sitting in at the prestigious "Birdland" jazz club. After finishing at Juilliard, Williams turned down a teaching position (and available work as an engineer) to try to make his living as a pianist in New York. Was making money even a concern?
"It was a concern when I wasn't eating, yes," Williams said. "I call those my peanut days, when I'd buy a nickel bag of peanuts at the end of the day and try to make that last through the night. But money has never been a goal of mine. The only goal I have is to please me, and I'm a rough critic."
After a few months, Williams found a job playing at the ritzy Forest Hills Inn, a job he held for four years. His big break came when record company executive David Kapp heard him there and called one Friday night to ask if Williams wanted to record "Autumn Leaves" on the tail end of Jane Morgan's recording session.
"I didn't even know the title," Williams remembered. "I said, `You mean "Falling Leaves?" ' And I'm glad I thought it was `Falling Leaves,' because I made the arrangement with those thirds coming down from the top. To me that sounded like falling leaves."
Morgan's session went long and Williams didn't have time to rehearse. However, they got it in two takes. "I played it once, and it turned out great, but it was a little long. It was three minutes and three seconds, and in those days a disc jockey couldn't play a record that was over three minutes. So David said, `Can you play these thirds a little faster,' and I did, and it came out 2:59."
"From then on I was off and running," said Williams of his pop piano career, which has taken him to the top of the Billboard charts over four decades, as well as to the White House to play for eight different presidents.
Williams first began picking out pop melodies on the piano at the age of 3, and before long he was playing in the church where his father was minister. He still accepts invitations to play in churches, including the Crystal Cathedral in Los Angeles where he is a regular on Dr. Schuller's "Hour of Power."
"I don't know who it was that gave me this gift," said Williams, "but I want to take every chance I get to say thank you."
Williams describes himself as a "heart pianist" more than a "mind pianist," and his arrangements focus on melody. He finds a dearth of melody in today's popular music, especially rap and heavy metal, but he doesn't blame youngsters for listening to it. "When I was a kid in school, we'd put our heads down every week to listen to the broadcast from the New York Philharmonic, and music was part of the curriculum.
"If we cut music education, of course kids are going to listen to music in its most elemental form, which is what rap is. It's a chant and a rhythm."
Does Williams' melodic music still have a place in 1998? "Why don't you come to the concert yourself and see? We'll have a great time."