Bruce Lambourne Fowler (born July 10, 1947)^[1] is an American trombonist and composer. He played trombone on many Frank Zappa records, as well as with Captain Beefheart and in the Fowler Brothers Band. He composes and arranges music for movies, and has been the composer, orchestrator, or conductor for many popular films.

He is the son of jazz educator William L. Fowler and the brother of multi-instrumentalist Walt Fowler and bassist Tom Fowler. Bruce Fowler is participating in the Band from Utopia, the Mar Vista Philharmonic, and Jon Larsen's Strange News from Mars, featuring Zappa alumni Tommy Mars and Arthur Barrow. He also recorded albums with Air Pocket, a band including his siblings.

Fowler is the recipient of the 2007 Film & TV Music Awards for Best Score Conductor and Best Orchestrator.

Discography

With Frank Zappa/The Mothers of Invention

• Over-Nite Sensation – 1973
• Apostrophe (') – 1974
• Roxy & Elsewhere – 1974
• Bongo Fury – 1975 (Captain Beefheart appears on this album as well)
• Zoot Allures – 1976
• Studio Tan – 1978
• Sleep Dirt – 1979
• Orchestral Favorites – 1979
• You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 1 – 1988
• Broadway the Hard Way – 1989
• The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life – 1991
• You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 4 – 1991
• Make a Jazz Noise Here – 1991
• Beat the Boots – 1992
  • Unmitigated Audacity (rec. 1974)
  • Piquantique (rec. 1973)
• You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore, Vol. 6 – 1992
• Strictly Commercial – 1995
• The Lost Episodes – 1996
• Läther – 1996
• Have I Offended Someone? – 1997
• Cheap Thrills – 1998
• Son of Cheap Thrills – 1999
• Imaginary Diseases – 2006
• Trance-Fusion – 2006
• Wazoo – 2007
• One Shot Deal – 2008
• Road Tapes, Venue #2 – 2013
• Roxy By Proxy – 2014
• Roxy the Soundtrack – 2015
• The Crux of the Biscuit – 2016
• The Roxy Performances – 2018
• Halloween 73 – 2019
• Zappa - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – 2020
• Zappa '88: The Last US Show – 2021

With Air Pocket/The Fowler Brothers

• 1976: Fly On (East Wind)
• 1985: Hunter
• 1988: Breakfast for Dinosaurs

With Captain Beefheart

• Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) – 1978
• Doc at the Radar Station – 1980
• I'm Going to Do What I Wanna Do: Live at My Father's Place 1978 – 2000

With The Toshiko Akiyoshi - Lew Tabackin Big Band

• Farewell – 1980
• From Toshiko With Love also released as Tanuki's Night Out – 1981
• European Memoirs – 1982

Solo works

• Synthetic Division(with Phil Teele) – 1984
• Ants Can Count – 1990
• Entropy – 1993
• The Good Shepherd Soundtrack (with Marcelo Zarvos – 2006
• Inception – 2010

With Oingo Boingo

• Boingo Alive – 1988
• Dark at the End of the Tunnel – 1990

With Randy Newman

• Bad Love – 1999
• Harps & Angels – 2008

With other artists

• Stan Ridgway, The Big Heat – 1986
• Ed Mann, Perfect World – 1990
• Ray Charles, Genius Loves Company - 2004
• J.J. Cale and Eric Clapton, The Road to Escondido – 2006
• Avenged Sevenfold, Avenged Sevenfold – 2007
• Jon Larsen, Strange News From Mars – 2007
• Stu Nevitt, The Marion Kind – 2007