Edward B. Powell

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Edward B. Powell · Edward Benson Powell was an American arranger, orchestrator and composer, born in 1909 in Savanna, Illinois. He began as a self-taught arranger for a dance band at school and in this way attracted the attention of the jazz musician Fletcher Henderson. In the early 1930s he worked as an orchestrator on Broadway for Harms-Chappell, where he met colleagues who, like him, later moved to Hollywood. There, in the early 1930s, he became an orchestrator for Alfred Newman at United Artists, and worked, among other things, on Eddie Cantor's Kid Millions.

Music and breakthrough

Powell remained Newman's right-hand man at 20th Century Fox for more than thirty years and contributed to the music of around four hundred films. In 1936 he recommended David Raksin, and together they arranged Charlie Chaplin's music for Modern Times. On The Goldwyn Follies of 1938 he made the arrangements of George Gershwin's last songs, Love Is Here to Stay and Love Walked In. Together with Robert Russell Bennett and Conrad Salinger he orchestrated Newman's music for Gunga Din. He also worked on the score of The Song of Bernadette from 1943 and on the film versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals. In 1946 and 1947 he was president of the American Society of Music Arrangers.

Influence

To the public his name often remained invisible. Yet he was one of the arrangers who defined the recognisable sound of the great Hollywood studios, the full, colourful orchestra of classic film music. His fellow composer Oscar Levant counted him among the great specialists of the trade. He died in 1984.

Listening

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

• The Dream Factory: Film Reel 1^NL Reader