Greg Adams found his path fixed the moment he first held a trumpet. As a freshman at his Bay Area high school he claimed the lead trumpet seat, and by junior year he was already composing charts for several school ensembles. After graduation he entered Tower of Power and soon played a central part in forming the band’s signature horn style. His debut solo album, 1995’s Hidden Agenda on Epic Records, positioned him as a leading shaper of the emerging smooth jazz sound, and the album’s cover of Sade’s “Smooth Operator” still serves as an enduring model for the genre. The follow-up, Midnight Morning, came out in 2002 on his own Ripa Records; cuts such as “Roadhouse” then drew the attention of the storied jazz label Blue Note, which took on distribution. Adams’s muted trumpet approach—gentle jazz blended with R&B rhythms inside a cool, sensual mood—has kept him in steady demand as a session musician and arranger, with credits alongside Santana, Madonna, Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King, the Rolling Stones, Lyle Lovett, and Quincy Jones. He has also written scores for films including Mask and Top Gun. His third solo project, Firefly, appeared in 2004 on 215 Records.
