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Chicago native Fred Hopkins (1947-1999) had one of the most forcefully distinctive sounds of any jazz bass player of the last 30 years. A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Hopkins had a deep influence on postwar avant-garde jazz.
Though he rarely led a band of his own, Hopkins was a musician of remarkable expressiveness and formidable technique. Howard Reich, longtime jazz critic of the Chicago Tribune, once declared that "many connoisseurs considered Hopkins the most accomplished jazz bassist of his generation.”
To honor that legacy, drummer-composer Mike Reed has devised "The Magic Box: Music Inspired by Chicago Bassist Fred Hopkins,” to be performed in an SCP Jazz concert May 1. The program features new works, including a commission by saxophonist Henry Threadgill, performed by an ensemble of fellow Chicago improvisers.
Hopkins had a special connection to Orchestra Hall. As a young musician, he performed there as a member of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago. In archival interviews with journalist Ted Panken, Hopkins talked about his Chicago origins, including his Civic tenure. An alumnus of DuSable High School, Hopkins participated in Captain Walter Dyett’s acclaimed music program there. Hopkins also studied bass with Joseph Guastafeste, principal bass of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 2010, and regarded classical bassist-conductor Serge Koussevitsky as another inspiration.
On his original choice of instrument:
When I originally started off, I wanted to play cello. So I went to school, and Captain Dyett said, “What do you want to play?” I said, “I want to play cello.” He said, “We don’t have cello. You’re a bass player.” He actually told me I was a bass player. And he also intimidated me. He was one of those old-style teachers who tells you what’s happening, and you learn later. And I liked that; I like it now, I didn’t like it then.
Studying the classical bass after high school:
Well, because Walter Dyett’s standards were so high, we were all required to go as far as we could go with our instruments. And of course, playing concert band music, sometimes we would play some of the orchestral pieces. So what happened was that. And I was scared to death. He told me to go down and audition for this orchestra, which was the Civic Orchestra, the training orchestra for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
He said, “Look, man, go down and audition.” And I’ll tell you, I was scared. I said, “Oh, man, I don’t know if I’m good enough” and all these things. One of the AACM members, in fact, Charles Clark, had recently died, and they [the Civic Orchestra] had a special scholarship that the Chicago Symphony set up in his honor.
And I remember going down there, and I played this stuff. I was a pretty good reader. So I got through my prepared pieces, and I did a sight-reading piece, which was OK — I got through it. So then the teacher gave me a look, he said, “Look, why don’t you play something you want to play?” So I said, “OK.” So I played this piece, “You Don’t Know What Love Is,” and he said, “oh, OK.”
So anyway, that’s how I got into the orchestra. And I studied with Joseph Gustafeste, who was the principal bassist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It was another very valuable period for me, because instead of teaching me orchestral bass playing, he actually (on my request, by the way) taught me about the instrument. And once you know about your instrument, you can perform any kind of music. And that’s what I was really after. I didn’t know all this at the time, by the way. But those were the things that were happening.
Working with Muti and Solti:
I stayed with the Civic Orchestra for about three years. Most of the world-renowned conductors of the day, in all of the major orchestras, had conducted our orchestra, because all the guest conductors conducted the Civic Orchestra also. So all these guys like Muti, and in fact even Georg Solti conducted the orchestra one time. It’s amazing, the power. It’s just like an instrument. I mean, the power that a conductor has over an orchestra is amazing.
