At 20 years of age, Randy Villars was blessed with the opportunity of playing piano with the legendary bebop saxophonist Sonny Stitt, along with then future bass star Dave Carpenter and drummer Steve Barnes at Gilly's Jazz Club in Dayton Ohio. Thus began a string of gigs with such jazz giants as Eddie Harris, James Moody, John Scofield, Steve Turre, Fred Hersch, Clark Terry, Tim Hagans, and many others. He began his educational career as a graduate teaching associate in the Jazz Studies Department of The Ohio State University . After OSU, Randy became immersed in the busy commercial music scene in Cincinnati, Ohio, working as a session pianist, synth player, saxophonist, composer/arranger and producer. He played on projects for CBS, Polygram and other record labels. Randy has composed original music for national clients such as McDonald's, Gulf and Western and Kodak among others. He has composed original scores for Time‐Life Films which were broadcast on the A & E television network.
Randy has worked as a pit orchestra keyboardist for the touring Broadway musicals "Victor, Victoria," "42nd Street," "Annie," and "It's A Wonderful Life." He has also released three internationally distributed CD projects as a saxophonist on the Leviathan and Positive Music Records Labels. Randy has also authored two jazz instruction books called Secrets Of Music Theory‐Revealed! and The Scale Workout By Randy Villars.
randyvillars@att.net