Chapter 9-BOHP_2007-01-26_GHopkins

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GH: And the B3's had a great sound. The Leslie Speaker. Detroit had a million bars. And you know you could find probably 25 places to go to and sit in with organs any night. There were a ton of organs. I heard all the great organ players Jackie Duff , I sat in with him a bunch of times, Jimmy Smith was always playing there. I even got to play and record with Lonnie Smith Dr.Lonnie Smith.

FB: I remember reading that.

GH:That was actually when I came to Boston. So, we'll get to that.

FB:Y eah.

GH: In Detroit I got the call to work with this really nice jazz band. Billy M???. Billy M??? and his Manhattan jazz band it was called. It was 2 trumpets, trombone and clarinet. 2 trumpets in the middle, trombone in the bottom and clarinet on top. So the same instrumentation as King Oliver's band.

FB: Wow.

GH: So, that's where I met and worked with some Berklee people. 'Cause the first trumpet was Keith Green. Keith Green played trumpet he played trumpet. He played trombone. The bass player was Jeff Steinberg who is a tremendous writer. And when I met him he was just out of Berklee and he was just drenched in the writing techniques taught by Herb Pomeroy and Ray Santisi and everybody else. So, I would... I learned a lot from Jeff Steinberg about writing. So we got to write for this four horn band. Which 2 trumpets as I said, trombone and clarinet. But then on the weekends we played dances and it was 3 trombones bass, clarinet. So I had to get a valve trombone and play trombone, because Keith played trombone then I got a valve trombone and Rick ??? was the real trombone player in the band. Joe Barifaldi played this really good clarinet. a jazz clarinet kinda traiditional style. And then he played good bass clarinet. So, Billy M ??? wrote all these dance charts.

FB: Billy was the pianist?

GH: Billy was the pianist yeah. He was a stride pianist really high caliber. And he played hot. He could play "Little Rock Getaway". Burning. That was kind of a hot traditional band. I really got started writing professionally a lot for that band. It was fun. We played in Detroit at the top of the Punch Train hotel 6 nights a week. There were a couple of jazz matinees there. Then we went to New York and played at the Rainbow Lounge.