Tropical Moonlight - Stanley Black

 

Tropical 

Tropical Moonlight

Stanley Black

Piano with Latin Rhythms 

London LL 1615

1957

From the back cover: His (Stanley Black) recording schedule has long been a busy one. His large concert orchestra produces albums of symphonic suites of the works of composers like Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers and Cole Porter; his piano and strings specialize in intimate, romantic "mood music" LP's, which his piano and Latin American rhythm give us such exotic records as this one and the perviously released "Cuban Moonlight".

Stanley was born in London on June 14th, 1913. His musical education began at the Matthay School of Music, where he studied the pianoforte. After this opening skirmish the went on to work as pianist and arranger with various dance bands and light orchestras, gaining invaluable knowledge and experience of what the public liked musically and how they liked it.

His interest in Latin American music was first stimulated when he visited South America as pianist with Harry Roy's band in 1937. This tour presented ample opportunity for listening to the genuine rhythms and musical forms of the countries visited, and Stanley was completely captivated by the experience. The fascination caused by this idiom has remained active and undiminished until the present day, and the music which he heard a score of years ago set a standard from Stanley which he has observed rigidly ever since. Both on record and in the numerous Latin American projects which he arrange and presented during his eight year spell as director or the B.B.C. Dance Orchestra, Stanley has always scored authentic settings and interpretations to the melodies and rhythms from South America. Even European tunes with have been arranged in a particular Latin style receive the correct treatment warranted by that style, and are thereby given a vivid new lease of life in their Latin American guise.

This album demonstrates that point. Some of its constituent tunes are from Latin America, while others are already known to us in the less exotic musical environment. All of them receive the polished Black treatment, and all emerge from the speaker as fresh and vibrant as the flowers in a lush tropical garden. Stanley has devised interesting instrumental effect, which he mysteriously decries as "something like tunable cowbells", to balance and enhance his own attractive work at the piano. The pleasant sounds of these intriguing effects can be heard form time-to-time during the album; Stanley is not divulging how they were achieved, but we can tell you that the total line-up consisted of Stanley at the piano, a bass a guitar and four percussion.

Morton Gould's Tropical appropriately opens the album in a flowing rumba-guaracha arrangement. Next come two boleros with claves, maracas, bongos and conga drum providing a restful rhythmic backcloth for Stanley's melodic piano. Then we hear that most successful mambo color scheme, Cherry Pink, with its "tunable cowbell" decor and crisp timbales punctuation,  The romantic before mood turns for two more well-known melodies, and the first side ends in the tempo of the choro as we share a tourist class compartment with Stanley on a Brazilian train.

The second side commences with a lilting beat and tinkling triable establishing the identity of the baiao before Staley states the melody of April In Portugal in the bass, embellishing it with liquid treble arpeggios. Then an evergreen French favorite makes a bolero appearance before Arthur Benjamin's Jamaican Rumba takes us back to the Caribbean. Another melodious bolero follow, to be succeeded by the turbulent guaracha impression of the vanished continent lost beneath the sands of time which is contained in Attlantide, the vivid composition by French flautist Roger Boudin. Another bolero arrangement of a French tune affords a relaxing contrast before we end in sprightly Brazilian samba mood with eight toe-teasing bars of double-temp preceding a repeat of the melody an octave higher.

An album of fourteen colorful tunes played with the unmistakable touch of Black magic. An album which we think you will find more stratifying and entertaining with each successive hearing. – Nigel Hunter

Tropical  - Rumba Guaracha

The Kiss In Your Eyes - Bolero

Paradise - Bolero 

Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White - Mambo

Two Silhouettes - Bolero

Come Back To Sorrento - Bolero 

Turista - Choro

April In Portugal - Bolero

La Vie En Rose - Bolero

Jamaican Rumb

Stranger In Paradise - Bolero

Atlantide (Sands Of Time) - Guaracha

Mon Coeur Est Un Violin - Bolero

Neja Do Cabelo Duro - Samba