Arthur Lange


Arthur Lange was a United States bandleader and Tin Pan Alley composer of popular music. He composed music for over 120 films, including Grand Canary and Woman on the Run. Lange shared an Oscar nomination with Hugo Friedhofer for the film The Woman in the Window. He was nominated four times for Oscars, but did not win any.

Life and career

In the 1910s, Lange was active as a songwriter, collaborating frequently with lyricist Andrew B. Sterling and publishing with the Joe Morris Music Company. During the first half of the 1920s Lange recorded abundantly for Cameo Records. His 1923 orchestra, which also played the Cinderella Ballroom on Broadway and which included "hot" trumpeters Earl Oliver and Tommy Gott, was at the end of that year bought by young well-to-do bandleader Roger Wolfe Kahn, and it is not known whether the recordings Lange made after this point and up to 1926 were still made by these musicians or by another group. His 1928 recordings for Pathé Records were, however, almost certainly made by other unknown personnel. Though Lange himself played both piano and banjo he seems to have acted only as conductor and arranger on his band recording dates.
Census records show that Lange shared a residence in the Hollywood Hills in 1930 with Ray Heindorf, who would go on to win three Academy Awards.
Lange was a prolific arranger of dance band orchestrations during the 1920s. His "stock" orchestrations were in use by many bands of the day. Lange wrote "Arranging for the Modern Dance Orchestra" which was the definitive work of its day.

Selected Songs

Lange was nominated five times for an Academy Award for Best Original Score.