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Ira Newborn | |
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| Birth name | James Ira Newborn |
| Born | December 26, 1949 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, orchestrator, conductor, actor |
| Musical career | |
| Genres | Film score |
| Years active | 1975–present |
James Ira Newborn (born December 26, 1949) is an American musician, actor, orchestrator and composer, best known for his work composing motion picture soundtracks.
Newborn was born in New York City. References to him as James Ira are the result of a joke and incorrect. He has scored or written songs for films such as Sixteen Candles , [1] Weird Science , Ferris Bueller's Day Off , [2] [3] Uncle Buck , Planes, Trains and Automobiles , Mallrats , Ace Ventura: Pet Detective [4] and Into the Night , for which he wrote music for B.B. King . He frequently worked with director John Hughes. He also stepped in as musical director and producer for The Blues Brothers . Newborn's many film credits also include a small acting role in Xanadu, in which he appears as a 1940s bandleader.
Newborn may be best known for composing the soundtrack for the Naked Gun series of police satires starring Leslie Nielsen. Newborn's brassy big band/blues theme song for the franchise first appeared on the TV series that inspired the films, 1982's Police Squad! .
Newborn has also worked in concerts and commercials, on Broadway and in the recording industry as a performer, arranger, composer and conductor.
He is also an adjunct faculty member at New York University, from which he received his bachelor's degree in 1972. [5] Influenced by an eclectic variety of composers, such as Johann Sebastian Bach, James Brown and the Beatles, as a guitarist Newborn led and played in several musical groups before signing on as the musical director for the vocal group the Manhattan Transfer.
Newborn has contributed to albums by many artists such as Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Billy Joel and the Pointer Sisters.
Newborn wrote two songs performed by B.B. King for the Into the Night soundtrack: "My Lucille" and "Into the Night." Two songs co-written by Newborn appeared on the Into the Night soundtrack album, but not in the film: "Don't Make Me Sorry," co-written by Joe Esposito and performed by Patti LaBelle, and "Keep It Light," co-written by Reginald "Sonny" Burke and performed by Thelma Houston.
Newborn co-wrote "Clap Your Hands" for the Manhattan Transfer and "Get It On and Have a Party" for Patti Brooks on the Dr. Detroit soundtrack. Both "Geek Boogie" from Sixteen Candles and "Geek Romance" from Weird Science were credited to Ira and the Geeks.
He co-wrote "I Guess I'm Just Screwed" for The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear with David Zucker and Robert LoCash. With Peter Segal, he co-wrote "The Food Song" for the Naked Gun 33+1⁄3: The Final Insult soundtrack.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 American teen comedy film written, co-produced, and directed by John Hughes and co-produced by Tom Jacobson. The film stars Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, and Alan Ruck, with supporting roles from Jennifer Grey, Jeffrey Jones, Cindy Pickett, Edie McClurg, and Lyman Ward. It tells the story of a high school slacker, Ferris, who skips school with his best friend, Cameron, and his girlfriend for a day in Chicago, and regularly breaks the fourth wall to explain his techniques and inner thoughts.
John Wilden Hughes Jr. was an American filmmaker. He began his career in 1970 as an author of humorous essays and stories for the National Lampoon magazine. He went on to Hollywood to write, produce and sometimes direct some of the most successful live-action comedy films of the 1980s, such as National Lampoon's Vacation; Mr. Mom; Sixteen Candles; Weird Science; The Breakfast Club; Ferris Bueller's Day Off; Pretty in Pink; Some Kind of Wonderful; Planes, Trains and Automobiles; She's Having a Baby; The Great Outdoors; Uncle Buck; Home Alone; Dutch; Beethoven ; Dennis the Menace; and Baby's Day Out.
Michael Anthony Hall, known professionally as Anthony Michael Hall, is an American actor. He is best known for starring in films with John Hughes, which include the teen classics Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Weird Science.
Howard Leslie Shore is a Canadian composer, conductor and orchestrator noted for his film scores. He has composed the scores for over 80 films, most notably the scores for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies. He won three Academy Awards for his work on The Lord of the Rings, with one being for the song "Into the West", an award he shared with Eurythmics lead vocalist Annie Lennox and writer/producer Fran Walsh, who wrote the lyrics. He is a consistent collaborator with director David Cronenberg, having scored all but one of his films since 1979, and collaborated with Martin Scorsese on six of his films.
Basil Glen Ballard Jr. is an American songwriter, lyricist, and record producer. He is best known for co-writing and producing Alanis Morissette's 1995 album Jagged Little Pill, which won Grammy Awards for Best Rock Album and Album of the Year, and was ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. He is also well known for his collaborations with composer Alan Silvestri. He was involved in the recording and writing of Michael Jackson's albums Thriller, Bad and Dangerous. As a writer, he co-wrote songs including "Man in the Mirror" (1987) and "Hand in My Pocket" (1995). He is the founder of Java Records. He won the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media for "Believe".
Jeffrey Duncan Jones is an American character actor, best known for his roles as Emperor Joseph II in Amadeus (1984), Edward R. Rooney in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), Charles Deetz in Beetlejuice (1988), Dr. Skip Tyler in The Hunt for Red October (1990), Eddie Barzoon in The Devil's Advocate (1997), and A. W. Merrick in both Deadwood (2004–2006) and Deadwood: The Movie (2019). His career started in Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and advanced to London and Broadway. In film and television, Jones has had many roles which capitalized on his deadpan portrayal of characters in unusual situations, often to comic effect. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his performance in Amadeus and a Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the ensemble cast of Deadwood.
Sixteen Candles is a 1984 American coming-of-age comedy film starring Molly Ringwald, Michael Schoeffling, and Anthony Michael Hall. Written and directed by John Hughes in his directorial debut, it was the first in a string of films Hughes would direct centering on teenage life. The film was a box office success, earning $23.6 million against a $6.5 million budget, and launched Ringwald to fame.
Adam Lyons Schlesinger was an American musician, songwriter, composer, and record producer. He was a founding member of the bands Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, and Tinted Windows, and was a key songwriting contributor and producer for Brooklyn-based synth-pop duo Fever High. He also wrote songs for television and film, for which he won three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and the ASCAP Pop Music Award, and was nominated for Academy, Tony, and Golden Globe Awards.
Not Another Teen Movie is a 2001 American teen parody film directed by Joel Gallen and written by Mike Bender, Adam Jay Epstein, Andrew Jacobson, Phil Beauman, and Buddy Johnson. It features Chyler Leigh, Chris Evans, Jaime Pressly, Eric Christian Olsen, Eric Jungmann, Mia Kirshner, Deon Richmond, Cody McMains, Sam Huntington, Samm Levine, Cerina Vincent, Ron Lester, Randy Quaid, Lacey Chabert, Riley Smith and Samaire Armstrong.
Hans Hugo Harold Faltermeier is a German musician, composer and record producer.
Alf Heiberg Clausen is an American film and television composer. He is best known for his work scoring many episodes of The Simpsons, for which he was the sole composer between 1990 and 2017. Clausen has scored or orchestrated music for more than 30 films and television shows, including Moonlighting, The Naked Gun, ALF and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Clausen received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music in 1996.
Into the Night is a 1985 American black comedy action thriller film directed by John Landis, starring Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer. The film has many cameo appearances made by various filmmakers and directors, including Landis himself. The soundtrack features the songs "Into the Night", "In the Midnight Hour" and "Lucille", performed by B.B. King.
Richard Stone was an American composer. He played an important part in the revival of Warner Bros. animation in the 1990s, composing music and songs for Looney Tunes, Tiny Toon Adventures, Taz-Mania, The Plucky Duck Show, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain, Histeria!, The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, Freakazoid!, and Road Rovers, as well as the Warner Bros. Family Entertainment fanfare. Many consider him to be an heir to the style of Carl W. Stalling.
Scott Wittman is an American director, lyricist, composer and writer for Broadway, concerts, and television.
"Oh Yeah" is a single released in 1985 by the band Yello and featured on their album Stella. The song features a mix of electronic music and manipulated vocals. The song gained popularity after being featured in the films Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Secret of My Success, among other films. It is a popular staple in pop culture.
Kitty Jean Bilbrew, better known as Kitty White, was an American jazz singer who was popular in Los Angeles nightclubs.
Joseph Trapanese is an American composer, arranger, and producer. He works in the production of music for films, television, records, theater, concerts, and interactive media.
Glen Paul Roven was an American two-time Emmy winning composer, lyricist, conductor and producer. He composed the music to "The Hillary Speeches" setting two of Mrs. Clinton's speeches to music which streamed opposite Trump's inauguration and featured opera stars Patricia Racette, Isabel Leonard, Nathan Gunn, Lawrence Brownlee, Mathew Polenzani, Kyle Ketelson, and twenty-three others. Other notable Roven compositions include a violin concerto based on the children's book The Runaway Bunny which was recorded by Sony narrated by Brooke Shields and recorded by GPRrecords narrated by Catherine Zeta-Jones. Another notable composition is "Goodnight Moon, An Aria for Singer and Orchestra" which the National Chorale performed at Geffen Hall in 2016. It was subsequently performed at Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the Kimmel Center. His Symphony No. 2 premiered at Geffen Hall (2018) and he produced with Universal Music Hopes and Dreams, The Carnegie Hall Lullaby Project with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Joyce DiDonato, Patti LuPone, Dianne Reeves, Fiona Apple, Natalie Merchant, Pretty Yende and more. The CD hit number one in both the Classical and Pop charts. He was creating the Poetry Curriculum for K-6 for the United States Public School System. He was working on a musical for Netflix written by and starring Dolly Parton. He was the Artist Director of Roven Records. On July 25, 2018, Roven died at the age of 61.
Alexander Burke is an American musician, songwriter, composer, music producer, television producer, writer and actor. From 2013 to 2016 he was the keyboard player for the band Save Ferris.
Winnie the Pooh is the soundtrack album to the 2011 film of the same name, based on the eponymous novel created by A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard, and directed by Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall, the latter in his feature directorial debut. Henry Jackman composed the film score with additional music by Christopher Willis. The original songs were written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. The soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records on July 12, 2011.
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