Liberty Big Band Joins Forces
With Berklee’s Greg Hopkins

The United States Air Force Liberty Big Band shared the spotlight with legendary jazz trumpeter and composer Greg Hopkins in concerts at West Warwick, Rhode Island on February 6 and Amherst, New Hampshire on February 9.

Hopkins, a member of the faculty at Boston’s renowned Berklee College of Music and a frequent performer with his 16-piece Jazz Orchestra and Quintet, dazzled both audiences with his exquisite trumpet and flugelhorn playing on several numbers with the band.

On the up-tempo Woody Herman vocal selection entitled Fan It, Hopkins offered up an exciting, rapid-fire solo while Master Sergeant Andy Held, the Liberty Big Band’s Noncommissioned Officer-in-Charge, supplied the tongue-in-cheek lyrics. Hopkins’s stylings were also featured on an arrangement of Horace Silver’s Strollin’ and the Bennie Moten trademark Moten Swing. In addition, the Liberty Big Band presented a Greg Hopkins arrangement of the Johnny Green classic, Body and Soul, which Hopkins readapted specially for the ensemble.

The United States Air Force Band of Liberty has benefited greatly from its ongoing partnership with Greg Hopkins and the Berklee College of Music. Thanks again, Greg!!

• Greg Hopkins bio
• Greg Hopkins/Rick Culver Jazz Clinic—October 2005