From Motown to Berklee, He's Mastered It All

MARCH 31, 2001 THE BOSTON GLOBE

The new CD, Okavongo, and a pair of upcoming concerts by Greg Hopkins and his 16-Piece Jazz Orchestra should confirm that Hopkins is one of Boston’s greatest jazz resources. Over lunch Monday, the trumpeter-composer discussed his journey from Motown session man and self-taught orchestrator to Berklee writing guru with the same enthusiasm, wide-ranging curiosity, and personal style that stamps his music.

“Writing went along with playing,” said Hopkins, who brings his band to Casa Vecchia in Salem, N.H., tomorrow afternoon and the Regattabar in Cambridge on Tuesday night. “My first trumpet idol was Jonah Jones, with that sweet sounds and happy kind of swing. My father was a violinist, and we’d play the tunes together off Jonah’s records.”

“I had a good lip and started playing with a lot of older and much better players, dance jobs every Friday and Saturday night during high school. Then I just started writing, sitting at the piano and letting ideas take over.”

As a Detroit native, Hopkins had two of the city’s signature gigs as a teenager - on the Ford assembly line and in the horn section for Motown Records. “I started on the fringes of Motown, as a substitute trumpeter. All of the players were jazz players, great ones like Marcus Belgrave and Louis Smith.”

He organized the Brookside jazz Ensemble rehearsal band in 1968, which still exists in Detroit, and formed a group with two trumpets, two tenors, organ, and drums during the heyday of Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears.

Hopkins, 54, says he really learned to write after head Motown trumpeter Johnny Trudell lined up work for him in touring bands. “New music is the lifeblood of a road band, and Johnny recommended me when pianist Billy Maxted called and said he needed a trumpeter. That band had two trumpets, trombone, and clarinet, but with everybody doubling, I got to write for all kinds of combinations, like three trombones and bass clarinet. Then after two years, I got a call [to join] Buddy Rich’s big band. I was fortunate t always work with very good players, and just tried to write for their sounds.”

A need for a break from the road in 1974 led Hopkins to Boston and Berklee. “Buddy played here a lot, and Boston had appealed to me as the most international city in the US,” he said. “My original plan was to take just one year off, but between the teaching job I got at Berklee and playing the theaters, Boston became a seductive place to live.”

His education continued once he established his roots here. “I learned to teach by the seat of my pants, the way I learned to play jazz,” he said with a laugh, “and over the years I wrote when the opportunity arose. It has built up to 50 or 60 big band charts, with a focus on my own originals, which are a little more complex. My intent is to recreate the electrifying energy I experienced with different road bands - and to experiment further, because you don’t have to fit a certain mold.”

Some of his band members have been with him for 25 years. The new CD on the Summit label is roughly half of the music the band recorded before taking a break more than a year ago. “It is a record in the true sense, because the pieces document our entire history,” he said.

The lessons Hopkins has learned about bandleading should whip his al-star troops (including Jeff Stout, Tony Lada, Rick Stepton, Bill Pierce, and Mick Goodrick) into instant shape. “I cut to the chase in rehearsals, by pointing out the hard parts on each composition,” he said. “Then, with judicious coaching, everyone can grasp the musical shapes quickly.

“And I never tell people who is going to solo in advance, even when I’m conducting high school bands. That keeps everybody listening.”