Jimmy Hopps

Jimmy Hopps (born 1939, James Edward Hopps Jr.) was an American jazz drummer. Though never recording as a leader, he worked extensively with Roland Kirk, Charles Tolliver, Stanley Cowell and Pharoah Sanders during some of their most well known sessions. He also worked with Sahib Shihab, Joe Bonner, Cecil McBee, Marion Brown, Shirley Scott, Jan Garbarek and Arild Andersen on a one-time basis.

Kazumi Watanabe's Mudari - Spirit Of Song features Hopps as a co-leader. He also appeared on A Song for the Sun, the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen. Here he used his pseudonym Jimmi EsSpirit.

Discography

With Stanley Cowell

With Cecil McBee

With Charles Tolliver

With Harold Vick

References

Kazumi Watanabe

Kazumi Watanabe (渡辺香津美) is a jazz and jazz fusion guitarist, from Tokyo, Japan. He was born on October 14, 1953.

Watanabe learned to play guitar from Sadanori Nakamure, one of Japan's grandmaster guitarists. He released his first recording in 1971, and quickly became a promising guitarist in his own right. In 1979, he formed an all-star band with some of Japan's leading studio musicians, and recorded the album Kylyn, which is considered a masterpiece in fusion music. That year, he also was a touring musician with Yellow Magic Orchestra.

During the eighties Watanabe released a considerable number of jazz-rock albums. To Chi Ka (1980), with its funk influences and bright sound, is probably the most famous early title. Some latter albums, such as Mobo Club (1983) and Mobo Splash (1985) display more experimental tendencies. But the most famous of all is Spice of Life (1987) which is written in a strongly melodic style. A DVD has been issued from the tour in which the music was played with drummer Bill Bruford and bassist Jeff Berlin (who also play on the studio record). In the 1990s Kazumi assembled an all-Japanese line-up called Resonance Vox (Vagabonde Suzuki on bass, Rikiya Higashihara on drums, Tomohiro Yahiro on percussion). This band has released several adventurous fusion albums.