Girls Girls Girls

Britain-born Stanley Black came up during the 1930s as an arranger and jazz pianist; he later composed quite a number of film scores and put out scads of theme albums that were reissued during the first years of the new millennium by Dutton Vocalion. Stanley Black Plays for Latin Lovers is similar to his ultra-cool lounge album Friml & Romberg in Cuban Moonlight. Unfortunately, on the album Girls Girls Girls Black felt it necessary to back his piano, celeste, guitar and well-heeled trombones with a sugary string section, as if medleys composed of songs with female names in the titles necessitated oozing violins. The effect, which suggests badly combined prescription meds, is exacerbated by the album cover art, a collage of dolled-up disembodied female heads all pouting, grimacing, glaring, grinning and smirking like escapees from an all-night festival of B-movies.