Phantom Dancer :: 12:00pm 9th Apr 2019
‘Lopez Speaking.’ Band leader Vincent Lopez is your feature artist on this week’s Phantom Dancer with Greg Poppleton.
One of the early stars of radio, you’ll hear the piano playing, wisecracking band leader from live 1945-59 radio.
See the full Phantom Dancer play list below of swing and jazz mixed by Greg Poppleton from live 1920s-60s radio below.
PHANTOM DANCER
This week’s Phantom Dancer will be online right after the 9 April 2SER live mix at 2ser.com.
Hear the show live every Tuesday 12:04-2pm on 107.3 2SER Sydney
LOPEZ
Vincent Lopez was born in Brooklyn, New York, to parents who had immigrated from Portugal. At age 22 in 1917 he was leading his own dance band in New York City.
RADIO
On November 27, 1921 The Lopez band began broadcasting on radio. The band’s weekly 90-minute show on the Newark, New Jersey, station WJZ boosted the popularity of both himself and of radio. He became one of America’s most popular bandleaders, and would retain that status through the 1940s.
He began his radio programs by announcing “Lopez speaking!”. His theme song was “Nola”, Felix Arndt’s novelty ragtime piece of 1915, and Lopez became so identified with it that he occasionally satirized it. (His 1939 movie short for Vitaphone, Vincent Lopez and his Orchestra, features the entire band singing “Down with Nola”.)
Lopez worked occasionally in feature films, notably The Big Broadcast (1932) and as a live-action feature in the Max Fleischer cartoon “I Don’t Want to Make History” (1936). In 1940, he was one of the very first bandleaders to work in Soundies movie musicals. He made additional Soundies in 1944.
INFLUENCED
Noted musicians who played in his band included Artie Shaw, Xavier Cugat, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Mike Mosiello, Fred Lowery, and Glenn Miller. He also featured singers Keller Sisters and Lynch, Betty Hutton, and Marion Hutton. Lopez’s longtime drummer was the irreverent Mike Riley, who popularized the novelty hit “The Music Goes Round and Round”.
Lopez’s flamboyant style of piano playing influenced such later musicians as Eddy Duchin and Liberace.
In 1941 Lopez’s Orchestra began a residency at the Taft Hotel in Manhattan that would last 20 years.
In the early 1950s, Lopez along with Gloria Parker hosted a radio program broadcast from the Taft Hotel called Shake the Maracas in which audience members competed for small prizes by playing maracas with the orchestra.
TV
He also broadcast the TV show “Dinner Date” from the Hotel Taft in 1950.
The Vincent Lopez Show was a popular TV series which ran from 1949 to 1957.
VIDEO
This week’s Phantom Dancer video of the week is from 1932 – the Lopez Orchestra in a Paramount short, “Those Blues”. The song is WC Handy’s St Louis Blues.
9 APRIL PLAY LIST
Play List – The Phantom Dancer
107.3 2SER-FM Sydney, Live Stream, Digital Radio
Community Radio Network Show CRN #380 |
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107.3 2SER Tuesday 9 April 2019 |
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Set 1
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Big Bands on 1944-46 Radio | |
Brahm’s Hungarian Dance No.5
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Shep Fields and his New Music
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‘One Night Stand’
Copacabana NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 9 Aug 1944 |
These Foolish Things (ts) Charlie Ventura
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Gene Krupa Orchestra
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‘One Night Stand’
Meadowbrook Gardens Culver City Ca. AFRS Re-broadcast 31 Mar 1946 |
Elks Parade + Close
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Bobby Sherwood Orchestra
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‘One Night Stand’
Avadon Ballroom LA AFRS Re-broadcast 3 Jun 1946 |
Set 2
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Band Singers on the Radio | |
Come Rain, Come Shine
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Jo Stafford
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‘Let’s Go To Town’
Radio Transcription Hollywood 1954 |
Exactly Like You
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Andy Russell
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‘Double Feature’
AFRS Re-broadcast Hollywood 15 Oct 1944 |
It Happened in Monterey + Close
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Perry Como
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‘Let’s Go To Town’
Radio Transcription Hollywood 1954 |
Set 3
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1935-36 Radio | |
Syncopated Love Song
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Nathaniel Shilkret
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WEAF NBC Red NY
1935 |
O Miss Hannah + The Way You Look Tonight + I’m An Old Cowhand + Close
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The Revellers
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‘The Magic Key’
WJZ NBC Blue 11 Nov 1936 |
Instrumental + I Love A Parade
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Freddy Rich Orchestra
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‘Dodge Show’
Radio Transcription New York City 13 Feb 1936 |
Set 4
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Vincent Lopez | |
Nola
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Vincent Lopez Orchestra
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Comm Rec
Hollywood 8 Jan 1940 |
Open + Song of the Islands + My First, My Last, My Only Love
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Vincent Lopez Orchestra (voc) Bruce Hayes
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‘Luncheon with Lopez’
Grill Room Hotel Taft WOR Mutual NYC 10 Aug 1945 |
My Melancholy Baby + Muskrat Ramble
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Vincent Lopez Orchestra (voc) Texas Teddy Norman
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‘One Night Stand’
AFRS Re-broadcast Grill Room Hotel Taft 1959 |
Set 5
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Cotton Club 1938 Radio | |
Intro + Jig Walk
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Duke Ellington Orchestra
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Cotton Club
WABC CBS NY 22 May 1938 |
Downtown Uproar
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Duke Ellington Orchestra (featuring Cottie Williams)
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Cotton Club
WABC CBS NY 17 Apr 1938 |
Slappin’ on Seventh Avenue
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Duke Ellington Orchestra
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Cotton Club
WABC CBS NY 22 May 1938 |
Oh Babe, Maybe Some Day + I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart
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Duke Ellington Orchestra (voc) Ivie Anderson
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Cotton Club
WABC CBS NY 22 May 1938 |
Set 6
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Duke Ellington Alumni | |
Round Midnight (theme) + 711
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Cootie Williams Orchestra
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‘One Night Stand’
Savoy Ballroom Harlem NYC AFRS Re-broadcast 12 Feb 1945 |
Tutti for Cootie
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Duke Ellington Orchestra (featuring Cottie Williams)
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‘One Night Stand’
Steel Pier Atlantic City AFRTS Re-broadcast Jul 1964 |
I Ain’t Got Nothing But The Blues
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Duke Ellington Orchestra (voc) Kay Davis, (ts) Al Sears
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‘Date With The Duke’
Cafe Zanzibar WJZ ABC NY 10 Nov 1945 |
Right Now, Right Now
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Alan Freed Big Band (ts) Al Sears
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Comm Rec
New York City 1956 |
Set 7
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Nan Wynn on Radio | |
All This And Heaven Too
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Raymond Scott Orchestra (voc) Nan Wynn
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Panther Room
Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 1940 |
And So Do I
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Raymond Scott Orchestra (voc) Nan Wynn
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Panther Room
Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 1940 |
Blueberry Hill
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Raymond Scott Orchestra (voc) Nan Wynn
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Panther Room
Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 1940 |
A Million Dreams Ago
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Raymond Scott Orchestra (voc) Nan Wynn
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Panther Room
Hotel Sherman WMAQ NBC Red Chicago 1940 |
Set 8
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Trad Radio | |
Wailing Blues
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The Cellar Boys
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Comm Rec
New York City 30 Jan 1930 |
Black and Blue
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Muggsy Spanier
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‘This is Jazz’
WOR Mutual NY 22 Mar 1947 |
Didn’t He Ramble
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The Southern Jazz Group
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5AD
Adelaide 18 Jun 1949 |
That’s A’Plenty + Close
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Muggsy Spanier
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Club Hangover
KCBS CBS San Francisco 18 Jun 1953 |