The Music Of Irving Berlin - Stanley Black

Cheek To Cheek

The Music Of Irving Berlin
Stanley Black Conducting The Kingsway Promenade Orchestra
London Records LL 811
1954

From the back cover: Slightly built, dark haired, unassuming – Stanley Black scarcely gives the impression of being one of Britain's most active men of popular music. Yet this diffidence – or seeming diffidence, allied to keen understanding of his fellow musicians, is probably what makes this soft-spoken authoritarian so effective a figure on the podium. And were he not endowed with these unique characteristics, it is unlikely that he could keep pace with the many demands on his services.

Since 1945 he has held down the exacting post of Musical Director to the BBC Dance Orchestra, which, under the Black baton, has become one of the most brilliant all-round outfits to be heard on the British air-waves. So frequently does this orchestra broadcast that the knowledgeable listener must often wonder how Stanley manages to fit his active career as a writer and conductor of film music – a sphere in which he is gaining prestige every day. And all this aside from his recording work – both as an accompanist of vocalists (a field wherein he is almost without equal) and as a band-leader in his own right, as on the present records.

As an arranger Stanley Black is one of the most sought-after in British music business. Indeed, a Black arrangement is practically a warranty of success.

Born in London in 1914, Stanley Black commenced music studies at the tender age of 7, taking lessons on a pianoforte from the eminent concert pianist, Rae Robertson. His first professional engagement came when he was scarcely in his teens – the piano stool in the pit band of the local vaudeville house. At 17, he entered and won, a nationally organized arranging contest. From then on he threw all his energies into dance music, and in the star-spangled years which followed; played piano and arranged for such famous British orchestras as Ambrose's Lew Stone's and Ray Noble's. At one period he was the virtuoso half of Harry Roy's famed two-piano team of "Black & Whit," and when Coleman Hawkins visited England in 1934 the great saxophonist selected Stanley Black as his accompanist.

Say It With Music
A Couple Of Swells
Cheek To Cheek
They Say It's Wonderful
No Strings
Say It Isn't So
The Piccolino
Marie
Heat Wave
How Deep Is The Ocean
Play A Simple Melody
The Song Is Ended
A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody
There's No Business Like Show Business