The Greg Hopkins-Dino Govoni Quintet

Jazz fans should make plans for one of the biggest jazz events in several seasons at Williams College’s ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance. The Berkshires really got slammed this year with one of the coldest and hardest winters in memory. Here is a cure for the cabin fever and a way to feel the heat again. The maintenance crew has made sure the ice is cleared and has been adjusting the smoke detectors in advance of this event to prepare for the dance and drama of the ever-burning Hopkins-Govoni Quintet with an evening of Contemporary-Post/Hard Bop Swinging Jazz with a tinge of Latin.

Performer, composer, and arranger Greg Hopkins first picked up the trumpet as a boy in Detroit and to this day it would be hard to spot him without his horn. Hopkins plays even when caught in traffic commuting to Berklee College of Music, where he’s been teaching since 1974, the year theLondon Timescalled him “a real find” for the Buddy Rich Orchestra, according to Phillips Academy.

He has toured nationally and internationally, appearing at the Newport, Monterey, and other major jazz festivals. Hopkins has performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, Joe Williams, Tony Bennett, the Supremes, Burt Bacharach, Nancy Wilson, Lou Rawls, Mitzi Gaynor, Michel Legrand, Johnny Mathis, Shirley Maclame, Marvin Hamlisch, and Lena Home, as well as with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, and the Boston Brass Ensemble.