''King of the Piano Roll'' Victor
Arden was among the most popular entertainers of the late 1920s and
early 1930s. Together with partner Phil Ohman, he recorded hundreds of
songs and piano rolls featuring the duo's ''pyrotechnical'' keyboard
style. The pair were also featured on numerous radio programs and led
pit orchestras for several George Gershwin musicals.
Arden earned a degree in music from the University of Chicago, from
where he went on to attend the American Conservatory of Music. While a student he started his roll career by recording for the Imperial Player Roll Co. of Chicago, and after
moving to New York, he began playing music for movie shorts and
writing original compositions. He started recording for Ampico, and
became one of their most prolific artists. Nearly 2 dozen Ampico Rolls
were issued using Victor's his real name, Fuiks, but the bulk of his
work was issued under the Arden name. In the early twenties, while
working for the QRS Piano Roll company, he met his future partner,
Phil Ohman. The two became friends and later formed a team. Phil
Ohman's brother Ernest, has said that "Phil sketched out the
arrangements, but didn't write them down. He decided the style. In
their duets, Phil played the treble."
One critic at that time reported that "Arden was
"the serious minded, painstaking musician", while Ohman was the "wag
and clown of the pair". As an example, the critic noted "Ohman's sense
of musical humor, famous among those who know him, expressed itself in
his jazzing of a refrain of a negro spiritual while accompanying a
singer at a staid musical concert, to the inmmense delight of a very
proper audience."
Arden and Ohman made a name for
themselves in vaudeville and playing small clubs on 52nd Street. In
1924 they were hired to conduct the pit orchestra for the Gershwin
musical Lady Be Good, the first of many shows in which they
were involved. Among the other musicals they worked on were Funny
Face, Oh Kay, Tip Toes and Spring Is Here. They eventually
formed a full big band, which featured various vocalists, including
Frank Luther. The duo also appeared in Vitaphone short films such as
'The Piano Duelists' (1927) and worked on several radio programs,
including the American Album of Familiar Music, The Buick
Program and the Bayer Music Review.
The duo split in 1934, though a brief reunion produced several
recordings for the Brunswick label. After the break-up, Arden formed a
short-lived dance band. From 1934 to 1937, he conducted studio
orchestras at NBC for such radio shows as Kings of Melody, Broadway
Varieties and Sweetest Love Songs Ever. He conducted Abe Lyman's
orchestra on many shows of the popular Waltz Time series. During the
1930s, he conducted the orchestra on several Dick Powell recordings.
In the mid-1940s he worked on the Manhattan Merry-Go-Round and in 1947
on the American Melody Hour. Late in his career, he also directed the
''All Stars Trio,'' a group he had originally formed back when he was
arranging piano rolls for QRS. He returned to QRS briefly in 1959 with a single roll ('I Enjoy Being A Girl' from the 1958 Rodgers/Hammerstein musical 'Flower Drum Song'. Victor Arden died in 1962. |
