Vincent Lopez

Vincent Lopez (December 30, 1895 – September 20, 1975) was an American bandleader, pianist, and actor born in Brooklyn, New York, to Portuguese immigrant parents. By 1916 he was leading his own dance band in New York City, and on November 27, 1921, his ensemble began broadcasting on WJZ, a Newark, New Jersey radio station, with a weekly 90-minute program that elevated both his own profile and the medium of radio itself. He opened each broadcast with the signature greeting "Hello everybody, Lopez speaking!" and adopted Felix Arndt's 1915 novelty ragtime composition "Nola" as his theme, becoming so closely associated with the piece that he occasionally parodied it — most notably in the 1939 Vitaphone short Vincent Lopez and his Orchestra, in which the full band performed "Down with Nola."

Lopez's Broadway appearances spanned from 1921 to 1928 and included the musical Love Birds, the revue The Greenwich Village Follies in 1923, and Earl Carroll's Vanities in 1925. His stage work ran concurrently with a film career that included a role in The Big Broadcast (1932) and a live-action appearance in the Max Fleischer cartoon I Don't Want to Make History (1936). In 1940 he was among the first bandleaders to participate in Soundies movie musicals, returning to the format again in 1944.

His orchestra served as a launching point for a number of musicians who went on to significant careers, among them Artie Shaw, Xavier Cugat, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Bob Effros, Mike Mosiello, Fred Lowery, and Joe Tarto. Vocalists who performed with the band included Betty Hutton, Marion Hutton, and the duo Keller Sisters and Lynch. Lopez's longtime drummer was Mike Riley, who became known for popularizing the novelty hit "The Music Goes Round and Round." Lopez's piano style was cited as an influence on later performers including Eddy Duchin and Liberace.

In 1941, Lopez's Orchestra took up a residency at the Taft Hotel in Manhattan that continued for 25 years. In the early 1950s, Lopez and Gloria Parker co-hosted a radio program called Shake the Maracas, broadcast from the Taft Hotel on WABC, in which audience members competed for small prizes by playing maracas alongside the orchestra. Parker also contributed original compositions recorded by Lopez, including "Early in the Morning," "Here Comes That Mood," and several others. Lopez published his autobiography, Lopez Speaking, in 1960.

Beyond performance, Lopez pursued bandleading as a commercial enterprise. In 1924 he established Vincent Lopez, Inc., modeled on Paul Whiteman's United Orchestras, Inc., with the aim of founding jazz orchestras and schools across North America and managing copyrights. The venture became insolvent by 1926 and entered into partnership with Eugene Geiger's Eldorado Finance Co. to avoid bankruptcy. In 1927, Lopez joined Whiteman, Ben Bernie, George Olson, Roger Kahn, Fred Rich, B. A. Rolfe, and Ernie Golden in founding the National Association of Orchestra Leaders, a trade organization that hired attorney Julian T. Abeles at an annual salary of $25,000 with the stated purpose of reducing competition among orchestras for musicians, contracts, and bookings. The organization's legal activities on behalf of orchestra leaders continued into the 21st century. Lopez died on September 20, 1975, at the Villa Maria nursing home in North Miami, Florida.