The albums of trumpeter Theo Croker are a kind of laboratory in which he creates his music—a mix with a very modern sound aesthetic. Music that emerges from the search for one's own black identity, with soul singing, hip-hop beats, and rap. For his album "Love Quantum" he largely broke away from the jazz principle and chose a thoroughly electrified and thoroughly produced framework. One of the album’s tracks is entitled "Jazz Is Dead—“really? For Croker, "jazz" is a term that was never accepted by the old jazz greats such as Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, Charles Mingus, or Duke Ellington. "They all rejected the word jazz," said the trumpeter. “How do you deal with the fact that their faces stand for jazz all over the world 120 years later? They were so much bigger than that. The word 'jazz' was used to pigeon-hole black music and the intellectual, creative black artists. A drawer that you can control and subordinate to the mainstream. All these great artists have made modern music,” says Croker.
Shortly after "Love Quantum," "Sketches of Miles" was released in August 2022, a recording with the Theo Croker Quartet as part of the "Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic" series. The album was a tribute to Davis and 1950s jazz. That, too, is Croker—a musician who knows, appreciates, and passes on the tradition.
More recently, he has been playing in the sextet of the French saxophonist Émile Parisien, a European-American liaison that opens up new perspectives for Croker. In his new album, he finds a perfect mix of gospel, blues, jazz, soul, and funk—a contemporary sound that transcends all genre boundaries.
Tickets are CHF 64.50-80.90.

Website
offbeat-concert.ch/series-2023/theo-croker-%C2%ABlove-quantum%C2%BB

Where
Volkshaus Basel
Rebgasse 12-14
4058 Basel

Share Add to Calendar

Map
Google maps

Advertisement