Home » Jazz Musicians » Greg Hopkins

Greg Hopkins

Performer, composer, and arranger Greg Hopkins first picked up the trumpet as a boy in Detroit, and to this day it would be hard to spot him without his horn. Hopkins plays even when caught in traffic on commute to Berklee College of Music, where he’s been teaching since 1974 - the year the London Times called him “a real find” for the Buddy Rich Orchestra.

That symbiosis of man and musical instrument is evident in Hopkins’ solo performances by which he has served the orchestras of Louis Bellson, Billy Maxted, Rich, and Herb Pomeroy, as well as his own small ensembles and big bands. Hopkins began his professional career in 1965, freelancing in the Detroit area for such acts as the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Gladys Knight until 1969, when he graduated Michigan State.

From 1969 to 1974 he toured nationally and internationally, appearing at the Newport, Monterey, and other major jazz festivals. Hopkins has also performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, Joe Williams, Tony Bennett, the Supremes, Burt Bacharach, Nancy Wilson, Lou Rawls, Mitzi Gaynor, Michel Legrand, Johnny Mathis, Shirley MacLaine, Marvin Hamlisch, and Lena Home, as well as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, and the Boston Brass Ensemble.

He recorded as soloist and arranger the "Roar of ‘74" and "Stick It" with the Buddy Rich Orchestra, "Afrodisia" with Lonnie Smith, "Pramlatta’s Hips" with Herb Pomeroy (Shiah). "Together" with Maggie Scott (MM and R), "Orange Then Blue" with George Adams (GM Recordings), "Jumpin’ in the Future" with Gunther Schuller (GM), "Dreams Come True" with Suzanne Dean (NOVA), and numerous others.

His theater work includes 42nd Street, Dancin', Some Like It Hot, Annie, Tommy Tune Tonight, Catskills on Broadway, West Side Story, Porgy and Bess, My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison, The King and I with Yul Brynner, Into the Woods, Ragtime, and A Chorus Line.

His own 16-Piece Jazz Orchestra CD, "Okavongo", is out on the Summit label, as is his quintet CD, "Quintology", featuring Bill Pierce, Mick Goodrick, and Gary Chaffee. Just released this spring was the trio CD with Tim Ray's chamber jazz group "Tre Corda", featuring Tim on piano, and Eugene Friesen on cello. Hopkins is also featured on the new Grammy® winning jazz cd by composer Joel Pallson and his Septet, on the Icelandic label. Most recently he was trumpet soloist with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra on Arthur Welwoods composition for jazz trumpet and orchestra, on Albany Records. "Wind, Sky, and Clouds".

Read more

Tags

216
Album Review

Greg Hopkins Quintet: Quintology

Read "Quintology" reviewed by Craig W. Hurst


Quintology , the newest release by the Greg Hopkins Quintet, in many respects is a quintessentially exemplary jazz recording. The CD provides an aural snapshot of a veteran group of highly skilled musicians in an environment of long-term familiarity, creating communally made music. That the New England-based Greg Hopkins Quintet has been performing together for going on twenty years is reflected in not only how even the most technically challenging levels of musical difficulty are made to sound near effortless, ...

170
Album Review

Greg Hopkins: Okavongo

Read "Okavongo" reviewed by Ben Ohmart


Put together from twosessions in January 1997 and January 1998 at Berklee Studios in Boston, Greg Hopkins' more than 16 piece machinery elicits a big band movement with less swing and more contemporary jazz. The 7 minute 'Infant Eyes' is a perfect example of using a lot of people in a smooth jazz setting, occasionally rising up loud and strong, but often laying a solid sax foundation onto which everything else is built. Joe Hunt's constant clicks (and this drum ...

218
Album Review

Greg Hopkins: Okavongo

Read "Okavongo" reviewed by Jack Bowers


I’m always a touch apprehensive when preparing to review a big–band album whose title is as exotic as Okavongo, but trumpeter Greg Hopkins and his New England–based Jazz Orchestra set my mind at ease immediately with a sharp and dynamic reading of pianist James Williams’ “Stretchin’” (with the author sitting in on piano) and easily held my interest throughout the remainder of a well–shaped seventy–two–minute session. Perhaps “sessions” is more appropriate, as half the album was recorded in January ’97, ...

227
Album Review

The Greg Hopkins 16 Piece: Okavongo

Read "Okavongo" reviewed by Dave Nathan


Summit Records has captured two sessions recorded in Boston by a large group of New England musicians led by trumpeter Greg Hopkins. Most of the music was composed by Hopkins and is designed to incorporate the events which have influenced him during the last 25 years, running from his work in jazz and Motown in Detroit to playing in and writing for such big bands as Buddy Rich's. The title is somewhat misleading. The music is less African than European ...

Read more articles
3

Festival

Randy Brecker, Frank Vignola, Greg Hopkins To Headline Pittsfield Cityjazz Festival, Oct. 9-18

Randy Brecker, Frank Vignola, Greg Hopkins To Headline Pittsfield Cityjazz Festival, Oct. 9-18

Source: Edward Bride

Berkshires Jazz, which organizes and presents festivals, concerts, and other jazz events in Berkshire County, has announced the lineup for the 11th annual Pittsfield CityJazz Festival. A signature event of the fall foliage season in western New England, the festival runs Oct. 9-18, 2015. The wide-ranging lineup includes the first pairing of 6-time Grammy winner Randy Brecker with the Greg Hopkins Jazz Orchestra; a return engagement by guitar virtuoso Frank Vignola; the annual “jazz crawl;” a new discovery in the ...

1

Festival

"Fourth Annual A-Town Jazz Festival" Featuring Greg Hopkins & Lydia Harrell -- Arlington, Mass., April 11-12, 2015

"Fourth Annual A-Town Jazz Festival" Featuring Greg Hopkins & Lydia Harrell -- Arlington, Mass., April 11-12, 2015

Source: Mary Curtin Productions

The town of Arlington, MA will once again pulse with the sounds of jazz when the Fourth Annual A-Town Jazz Festival kicks in on April 11th and 12th. The Festival, hosted by Dan Fox and Morningside Music Studio, features renowned jazz trumpeter-composer Greg Hopkins, best known for his writing and performing with the Buddy Rich Band and his 40 years as a professor at Berklee College of Music. Also headlining the Festival bill will be vocalist Lydia Harrell accompanied by ...

157

Recording

Jazz Flutist Ilona Kudina Releases "Nothing But Illusion" with drummer Billy Hart, trumpeter Greg Hopkins, pianist Vardan Ovsepian and bassist Akili Jamal Haynes

Jazz Flutist Ilona Kudina Releases "Nothing But Illusion" with drummer Billy Hart, trumpeter Greg Hopkins, pianist Vardan Ovsepian and bassist Akili Jamal Haynes

Source: Sue Auclair Promotions

The Ilona Kudina Jazz Quintet Set to Perform at Scullers Jazz Club Tuesday, April 6, 2011, 8 PM Boston, MA—Ilona Kudina, who hails from the tiny Republic of Latvia and who has been living in Boston since 2001, is a fine flutist Informed by rigorous childhood classical training in Europe but equally comfortable in jazz genres. Her impeccable classical performances have been recorded on several CDs and she has been heard in many classical and jazz concerts throughout the Greater ...

226

Event

Berklee Remembers Herb Pomeroy: Tribute Concert to Feature Joe Lovano, Hal Galper, Jack Walrath, and Greg Hopkins and the Berklee Concert Jazz Orchestra

Berklee Remembers Herb Pomeroy: Tribute Concert to Feature Joe Lovano, Hal Galper, Jack Walrath, and Greg Hopkins and the Berklee Concert Jazz Orchestra

Source: Toni Ballard PR

PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT THE HERB POMEROY SCHOLARSHIP FUND On Tuesday, April 1, 2008, Berklee College of Music will present an historic musical event, as colleagues and former students converge to honor the memory of beloved trumpeter and educator Herb Pomeroy, who passed away in August, and whose four decades teaching at Berklee helped the college earn its world-wide reputation as the premier institution for the study of contemporary music. Proceeds from the concert will benefit the Herb Pomeroy Scholarship Fund. ...

Greg Hopkins Nonet Follows in Davis' Footsteps

APRIL 8, 1999 THE BOSTON GLOBE

Greg Hopkins, the inspired trumpeter/composer who is one of Boston’s unappreciated jazz treasures, was listed as the leader of the nonet that appeared at Scullers on Tuesday. On the band’s debut CD “Jazz!” (Summit), he shares billing with pianist Chuck Marohnic and tuba player Sam Pilaflan, Arizona-based musicians who (together with drummer Dom Moio) traveled to New England for the group’s East Coast debut.

Given the instrumentation (four brass, two saxes, and rhythm), the CD’s cover art by sometimes-painter Miles Davis and the inclusion of three original arrangements from the influential “Birth of the Cool” recordings, this band might appear to be a mere recreation of the Davis nonet. Yet that legendary unit of the late ‘40s is only one of the models that has inspired this new unit.

Read more

Primary Instrument

Trumpet

Location

Boston

Credentials/Background

Professor, Jazz Composition — Berklee College of Music Advanced Jazz Arranging for Large Ensemble Jazz Composition 3 Post Bebop Harmonic Innovations Directed Study in Jazz Composition Concert Jazz Orchestra

Photos

Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

REALITY CHECK

UN-GYVE RECORDS
2013

buy

Quintology

Summit Records
2004

buy

Okavongo

Summit Records
2001

buy

Similar

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.