Gateshead Jazz 2020
Theo Croker
Cancelled (original date Saturday 21 March 2020)
Please bear with us during this unprecedented period. We will be in touch in due course about your tickets. Thank you for your patience and co-operation. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused.
We are honoured to invite a true leading light of the new generation of US Jazz, Theo Croker, to the festival.
Star People Nation is trumpeter, producer, arranger, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Croker’s most personal project yet, something he describes as an intimate exploration of “the everyday rituals of blackness” and is already garnering widespread acclaim in the UK from the likes of Gilles Peterson.
Grandson of the late venerable trumpeter Doc Cheatham, and former student of legendary jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd, Theo Croker stands firmly at the helm of a scene with many parallels to that in the UK; taught by the greats, yet unafraid to step in bold new directions.
His 2016 album Escape Velocity, marked a watershed moment, with the Wall Street Journal extolling the album as “timeless and of-the-moment” and since then he’s lent his talents to the world of hip hop, acting as trumpeter, arranger and performer on rap superstar J. Cole’s platinum-certified No. 1 opus 4 Your Eyez Only, and Grammy award-winning rapper Common seeking him out for his critically-acclaimed album Black America Again.