Stanley Black

Stanley Black was one of Britain's most famous bandleaders and he composed the music for over 200 films. His albums of film themes sold in huge quantities in the UK, America, the Far East and New Zealand. His large concert orchestra also produced albums of symphonic suites of the works of Irving Berlin, Richard Rogers and Cole Porter. Born in London in 1913 Black was a child prodigy and was already playing the piano at the age of 7. The BBC Concert Orchestra broadcast his first composition when he was just 12. On leaving school he worked as a pianist arranger with various dance bands and light orchestras and by the time he was 18 he was working with American jazz musicians such as Benny Carter and Coleman Hawkins. During World War 2 he served in the RAF as a bandleader and on being demobbed he composed music for many BBC radio shows such as Hi Gang, starring Bebe Daniel and Ben Lyon, Much Binding In The Marsh and The Goon Show.

He played with Coleman Hawkins and Louis Armstrong in the 1930s, and was associate conductor of the Osaka Symphony Orchestra in 1971.

Black began composing for films in 1938 and for the next 50 years was in constant demand. He was as happy scoring jaunty British comedies such as The Naked Truth (57) and Too Many Crooks (59) as he was with dramas such as The Long and The Short and The Tall (60) and Sparrows Can't Sing (62).

After 10 wartime 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 1947, he married the dance-band singer Edna Kaye, with whom he had a son and a daughter.

As television expanded, he became music director on a host of programmes, and, after 1955, he was a pioneer writer of television advertising jingles.

His work also became familiar to millions of cinema audiences as a consequence of his theme tune and music library for Pathé News, written in 1960.

In 1962 he recieved the Ivor Novello Award for the song Summer Holiday. Among his most famous albums was Ethel's Riding High! with the film and Broadway legend Ethel Merman.

In 1965 he won a Gramophone Award for his version of Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnol.

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.

During his life, he conducted many of Britain's major orchestras, and until the 1990s he was still directing regular broadcast sessions at the BBC studios, despite the onset of deafness in later life.

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.