Chapter 4-BOHP_2007-01-26_GHopkins

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GH: So I got to see people like Les McCann, Randy Lewis, Oscar Peterson. Lee Morgan I saw. Freddie Hubbart play. These sessions all night long.

FB: Fabulous.

GH: Yeah it was really... There was another club Clarence's Bluebird Lounge. Yeah I saw Miles Davis play there, Yeah Herbie Hancock and I think George Coleman was in the band there. There were sessions there people would come and play. I remember going to a club and watching Joe Henderson and his brother play Satin Doll for over an hour. Just the one tune. Two tenors and a drummer. Back and forth back and forth. Yeah, so then.. I was young and impressionable and in high school. I thought everybody did this after high school went and played jazz because there was so much of it around Detroit. Great scene.

FB: Even then that was a little unusual. Nationally speaking except for New York and LA and a few other places.

GH: Detroit was a big tough industrial city. And when I was there, in the late 50s early 60s it was happening. I mean it was poppin because the auto industry was really doing well then because the big three were there, actually the big four: Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, and AMC was a different company. The American Motors. Remember the Rambler?

FB: Yeah.

GH: Yeah.

FB: So presumably some guy gets taken off the night shift. 3 am they want to go hang out they'd hit one of the clubs.

GH: They'd play. They'd go out and play then. Yeah. I used to play this one session at the Vicount Lounge down in ??? Michigan. I 'm not sure about the city. There would be a line of players starting at noon on Saturday, sitting in just playing and they're would be a bunch of organ players and drummers. And the session would end Monday morning at 8 o'clock. It would go from noon Saturday to Monday morning. And then you would go back to the factories and start working.

FB: We have haven't seen marathons in Boston like that for a long time.

GH: Well, you got Wally's that rivals that. And I'm sure back then in that era it was very similar. So yeah I met some really great musicians in Detroit. Heard some great players. I got to play with you know a lot of young people.