The Arden-Ohman Orchestra was an American orchestra headed by bandleaders Victor Arden and Phil Ohman in the 1920s and 1930s. They recorded several hits including "I Love a Parade" and served as the pit band in Broadway shows such as Lady, Be Good (1924), Tip Toes (1926) and Spring Is Here (1929). Ohman was born Fillmore Wellington Ohman in New Britain, Connecticut in 1896. He was one half of one of the pre-eminent piano duos in the 1922-1932, paired with Arden. They were the pit pianists in many of George Gershwin's musicals, and recorded hundreds of piano rolls and records. Starting in mid 1927, just as they signed to Victor Records, they developed a large studio orchestra specializing in Broadway show songs that became quite popular. These particular records employed a rather large, brassy powerful sound (it is not known who they used as arranger), always with a space for a twin piano duet section.
Ohman died in Santa Monica, California on August 8, 1954.
WIKIPEDIA
Victor Arden was the stage name for an American pianist named Lewis John Fuiks (8 March 1893 Wenona, Illinois — 31 July 1962 New York City) who was best known as the piano duo partner of and co-orchestra leader with Phil Ohman from 1922 to 1932.
Arden was a graduate of the University of Chicago and studied at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago.
Arden was married twice. He first married Ilse Alma Spindler (born April 1894) – a 1916 graduate of the University of Chicago – in Chicago, on May 2, 1917. Lewis and Alma had two sons: Robert Spindler Fuiks (1921–2009) and Lewis John Fuiks, Jr. (1919–2004). Victor remarried in the 1950s to Frances Newsom, a classical soprano.
