He began his career as a member of Broadway's pit orchestras; he later produced solo albums for songs that were picked up by leading music performers including The Carpenters, Barry Manilow, and Dionne Warwick.
Some of Edelman's best known films scores include Twins, Ghostbusters II, Kindergarten Cop, Drop Dead Fred, Beethoven, The Distinguished Gentleman, Gettysburg, Angels in the Outfield, The Mask, Pontiac Moon, The Indian in the Cupboard, Dragonheart, Daylight, and XXX.
He produced several solo albums of songs, some of which were later recorded by The Carpenters ("I Can't Make Music", "Piano Picker" and "You"), Barry Manilow ("Weekend in New England"), "If Love Is Real" from Olivia Newton-John's Making a Good Thing Better, Dionne Warwick ("The Laughter and the Tears"), Blood, Sweat & Tears ("Blue Street") and many others before moving to Los Angeles.
Edelman started to work there in television and film scoring, while producing his solo albums which found a cult following in the United Kingdom, Europe, and Japan.
[6] In the mid-1980s, Edelman wrote the theme to and scored many episodes of MacGyver, a popular television series starring Richard Dean Anderson.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, he also collaborated with Ivan Reitman, producing scores for several of his comedies, including Drop Dead Fred, Ghostbusters II, Pontiac Moon, Twins, and Kindergarten Cop.
He also contributed to Beethoven; The Last of the Mohicans; The Distinguished Gentleman; The Mask; Daylight; Anaconda; XXX; Gettysburg; My Cousin Vinny; While You Were Sleeping; Dragonheart; Shanghai Noon; Six Days, Seven Nights; The Indian in the Cupboard; Billy Madison; Angels in the Outfield; and EDtv to name a few.