Vincent Lopez

• Born 30 December 1909
• Died 20 September 1975

Vincent Lopez was a mainstay of the New York hotel scene for nearly 30 years, working the early evening shift at the Grill Room of the Hotel Taft. Like Meyer Davis, he was something of a general contractor, hiring out several ensembles under his name at times to work the wedding/ball/coming-out circuit. As a pianist, Lopez was a model for Liberace, Eddy Duchin, and others, moving among the three bases of light classical, ballads, and novelty tunes. He revived "Nola," a number from the 1910s, as his theme song and it became a minor exotica standard in its own right.