Stanley Black OBE (14 June 1913 – 27 November 2002) was an English bandleader, composer, conductor, arranger and pianist. He wrote and arranged many film scores and recorded prolifically for the Decca label (including London and Phase 4). Beginning with jazz collaborations with American musicians such as Coleman
Hawkins and Benny Carter during the 1930s, he moved into arranging and recording in the Latin American music style and also won awards for his classical conducting.
Black was born as Solomon Schwartz in Whitechapel, England. His parents were Polish and Romanian Jews. He began taking piano lessons at the age of seven, before studying under Rae Robertson at the distinguished Matthay School of Music. At the age of 12, he had a composition performed on the new BBC radio service, and, three years later, won a Melody Maker arranging contest, while simultaneously beginning a writing and performing career in that 1930s era of orchestral dance and jazz music.
In the early 1930s, he was employed in dance bands and had worked with Howard Jacobs, Joe Orlando, Lew Stone, Maurice Winnick and Teddy Joyce by the time he joined Harry Roy in 1936. He had also broadcast and recorded with several American musicians, including jazz saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter during their stays in England during this decade. Hawkins had first heard Black on late night radio shows with Lew Stone's band. When the two eventually met in London, the reviewer Edgar Jackson suggested they record together, and the two men collaborated on a duet version of "Honeysuckle Rose".
During World War II, Black joined the Royal Air Force, and became involved in managing the entertainment of servicemen based at Wolverhampton. After 10 months with the RAF, he returned to music freelancing; in 1942, he was the conductor, pianist and arranger on Anne Shelton's radio series, Introducing Anne, and, in 1944, became the house arranger and conductor at Decca Records, where he worked with Vera Lynn and, two decades later, Caterina Valente and Dickie Henderson.
From 1944 to 1952, Stanley was conductor of the BBC Dance Orchestra, during which time he made more than 4,000 broadcasts. In an era when radio in general, and the BBC Light Programme in particular, was the dominant medium, he provided the sound behind countless hit productions, including Hi Gang, with Ben Lyon and Bebe Daniels, Ray's A Laugh, with comedian Ted Ray, and the comedy series Much Binding In The Marsh and The Goon Show.
He also presented his own shows, in which he displayed a mastery of the Latin- American styles he had first encountered on a 1938 tour of South America with Harry Roy. In 1947, he married the dance band singer Edna Kaye, with whom he had a son and a daughter. Later, as television expanded, he became music director on a host of programmes, and, after 1955, was a pioneer writer of television advertising jingles.
Stanley's film work began in 1948, as the (uncredited) composer on It Always Rains On Sunday, and musical director on Monkey's Paw. Altogether, he worked on more than 80 films, including Laughter In Paradise (1951), The Naked Truth (1957), Too Many Crooks (1958) and Sparrows Can't Sing (1963). His last work was on Valentino, and The Razor's Edge (1984).
In the 1960s and 70s, Stanley returned to his classical roots, issuing albums of works by Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Wagner, Khachaturian and Dvorak, recorded by such orchestras as the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic and the London Symphony. His many foreign tours included trips to Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Australasia and north America. In 1977, he became the first non-American to conduct the Boston Pops Orchestra, and was associate conductor of the Royal Philharmonic in 1967, and principal conductor of the BBC Northern Ireland Orchestra in 1968-69.
In 1994, as he entered his 80s, he starred with Edmundo Ros at the Royal Festival Hall, and shared the stage at the Barbican with Stéphane Grappelli. In 1995, he was a guest performer at the Royal Albert Hall concert to celebrate the 50th anniversary of VE Day.
Among Stanley's many honours were an Ivor Novello Award for Summer Holiday (1962), and, in 1987, the gold award of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. He was on the advisory board of Who's Who In Music, and contributed a huge section on the history of jazz and the dance orchestra for the New Musical Educator. He was made an OBE in 1986.
Stanley Black died in London, November 26 2002, aged 89.
