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Biography |
by Joseph Stevenson
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Bruce Fowler is an outstanding trombonist, known for his jazz and rock work, and as a leading Los Angeles-area session musician. He is also highly skilled as an arranger and film music orchestrator.
His father, Dr. William L. Fowler, became famous as a jazz educator. Bruce was given thorough classical and jazz training, and in 1969, participated in the recording of Somewhere with Woody Herman. He was closely associated with rock legend Frank Zappa and played trombone on the Zappa albums Roxy & Elsewhere, Apostrophe, Bongo Fury, Studio Tan, Sleep Dirt, Orchestral Favorites, You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 1, 2 & 4), Broadway the Hard Way, The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life, Make a Jazz Noise Here, Strictly Commercial, Son of Cheep Thrills, The Lost Episodes, and Läther.
Bruce is also a member of the Fowler Brothers' Band, a raucous group. Other artists with whom he has appeared on recordings are: Captain Beefheart, Oingo Boingo, Vinny Golia, Rippingtons, One O'Clock Lab Band, Billy Childs, Brian Setzer, Harry Connick Jr., George Duke, and Neil Sadler.
He has also made the solo albums Entropy and Synthetic Division. One of his earliest orchestrator or arrangement credits was on the 1985 Tribute to Kurt Weill album, on which he also played trombone. In film session work, he has played on the soundtracks of such films as The Lion King, Short Cuts, Conspiracy Theory, The Prince of Egypt, The Thin Red Line, and The Rugrats Movie. He was music supervisor on Almost Heroes. As a film orchestrator, Bruce Fowler's first credit was Psycho IV, the Beginning, and his first major theatrical film was Backdraft. Other films in which he has participated in the orchestration include Radio Flyer, A League of Their Own, Broken Arrow, Flintstones, Twister, Smilla's Sense of Snow, Crimson Tide, Face/Off, Dante's Peak, Con Air, Antz, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, and Chicken Run. He is credited as musical consultant and lead trombonist on the 2001 Ridley Scott film Hannibal. |
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