Jazz Theocracy: Theo Croker

He’s cool and laidback on stage, but trumpet player Theo Croker’s youthful energy – and funky brown ‘locks – make you take notice. And now, as he pushes his musical ambitions and starts a new gig on the night-time talk show Asia Uncut with Jon Niermann, the jazz artist is building even more of an audience.

Theo Croker was destined to play the trumpet.

For one, the loud, powerful instrument has the potential to stand out big-time, and 24 year old Croker – with his trademark hairstyle and heritage you can’t quite put your finger on – is similarly striking. His grandfather is also trumpeter Doc Cheatham, a legendary jazz musician whose career stretched back to the 1920s, and well-known for a flowering talent that maintained its peak well into his 70s.

It’s a family legacy that has been both a boon and a burden for young Croker, who grew up in Leesburg, Florida and started playing at 11 years old after watching his grandpa perform in New York City.

Not long after, Cheatham passed away just a few days shy of his 93rd birthday and Croker never had the chance to learn from him. But his grandfather’s astounding influence in music was a source of growth and inspiration that helped him discover his passion.

“It wasn’t until my grandpa died that his career and music came into realisation for me,” Croker says. “I mean, I was just 12 years old – I knew my grandpa was a well-known musician but I didn’t know what that meant. And I definitely didn’t know that much about jazz.

“When he died, the jazz world and community was exposed to me, and I saw that I was right in the middle of it. That’s when I realised I wanted to be a part of this.”

From then on, Croker played his heart out. After Cheatham’s death, all the musicians he touched and influenced – like Wynton Marsalis, Nicholas Bateman, and Clark Terry – started to do the same for Croker, helping him develop as a trumpet player.

Years later, after recording his first album The Fundamentals at 20, and In The Tradition at 22, Croker is now in Shanghai, maturing and carving out his own path as a jazz musician.

He is versatile as a trumpet player, flexible and creative as a composer. His track ‘Change (Freedom Song)’ for example, starts off with tempered, raspy trumpet notes. Then with longer, bold tones, he develops a soulfulness and drama that builds the song’s crescendo.

“It’s different in Shanghai. No one knows my grandfather’s legacy here,” Croker says. “Getting away from that helped me develop who I am, who I want to be and how I want to be seen as an artist. So now when I do go back to the US and perform, it’s very clear that I’m Theo Croker and not Doc Cheatham’s grandson.”

In Asia, Croker has also been turning heads, averaging 20 to 30 gigs a month, making the rounds of JZ Club, House of Blues and Jazz, and most recently, a ‘Theo Croker 4 Swing’ music series at Cotton’s on Xinhua Lu last month.

Starting in December, he will also be heading the Theo Croker Sextet house band for Asia Uncut, an Asia-wide English-language talk show that will reach about 120 million people in 53 countries across Asia and the Middle East. The show, produced by Star World, airs in January.

Croker says he doesn’t think commercial TV exposure will deflect from his art, but instead, helps him as a jazz artist.

“The problem with jazz music is that a lot of people won’t want to check you out because they don’t really know what jazz is. But if I’m on your TV screen, a lot of people who don’t even know they like jazz will hear it, like it, and then get interested in it.”

Also in the works for Croker is a recording project with Chinese singers and rappers, as well as the start of an Afrobeat band.

But, with all of these projects on the go, and so much more time ahead of him, when will Croker feel he’s arrived as a jazz artist?

“Never. That wouldn’t be any fun,” he says with a laugh. “That’s part of the reason I got into this music. I realised this could go on forever.

“And I’m at a transition point right now, where I want to change everything – I want to shed the skin I’m in now. There’s a lot of projects I’m working on. As an artist you have to plant a lot of seeds, tend to all of them. Some of them grow, some of them never do.”

Web: www.theocroker.com