By all measures, Theo Croker is a jazz artist. The 39-year-old trumpeter/composer has been a Grammy nominee in the jazz fields; he played all the great jazz venues around the world; he was mentored by Donald Byrd at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he graduated with a degree in jazz music; and Dee Dee Bridgewater produced his third album, “Afro Physicist,” which features fellow trumpeter Roy Hargrove.
Yes, if you must categorize his music, then Croker is a true jazz artist. However, as a citizen of the world who lived and worked seven years in China and now splits his time between Orlando, Florida and Sao Paulo, Brazil, Croker has a very different definition of jazz than the standard American interpretation.
“Jazz, or the music I make, is much more open-minded, because the other places I go and spend a lot of time and play music, jazz is a very broad term and generally just means Black music,” he tells The Times. “Like in China, to them, jazz is Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis, Coltrane, all of that is jazz to them. It’s not as constricted of a definition as it tends to be in America where it’s like, ‘Oh, if it’s not purist, it’s not jazz.’ But I don’t have those issues in other places. People are just open-minded to it.”
It’s that eclecticism and adventurous spirit that propels Croker’s excellent upcoming “Dream Manifest” album, due June 13. For his eighth album, Croker let the full scope of his imagination wander. “This album is a fantasy album. I’m manifesting my dreams. It’s like you’re reading my dream journal,” he says. “This is me putting myself inside of a fantasy and really trying to let go of any type of boundaries or borders that constrict my creativity.”
“Jazz, or the music I make, is much more open-minded because the other places I go and spend a lot of time and play music, jazz is a very broad term and generally just means Black music,” Crocker said.
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Unbound by any musical shackles, Croker explores a vast terrain on “Dream Manifest.” The gorgeous, elegant opener, “Prelude 3,” would fit comfortably on any jazz playlist of the 1950s or 1960s. It is a piece of timeless beauty that leads into the ambient, contemporary love song “One Pillow,” featuring Estelle and Kassa Overall. Another standout is “Light as a Feather,” with Gary Bartz and Natureboy Flako. Featuring superior musicianship blended with a rhythmic, hypnotic beat, the song is a perfect melding of worlds. He returns to a slightly more traditional sound on the instrumental “Crystal Waters,” a song that conjures memories of Chuck Mangione and superbly evokes his Brazilian style on the 7 ½-minute “We Still Wanna Dance,” featuring D’leau.
Though there is a lot of musical light and joy within these songs, Croker says that, to him, the record, like all his favorite albums, from the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Gato Barbieri, Dizzy Gillespie, is about battling demons. “I lean into the darkness of myself. I like to face the darker aspects of what I find in a dream when I find dark things in my psyche and dream world,” he says. “I push and ask questions, and I go deeper into them.”
What demons is he battling on “Dream Manifest”? “I’m always battling the ego as any true creative is doing. Not the ego in the sense of, ‘I think I’m great.’ More the sense of, ‘I don’t need to go along with everybody else. I don’t need to make music the way everybody else does. I’m not making music to be popular. I’m not making music to fit a playlist. I’m not making music to make the label happy,’” he explains. “More so about making music that truly lets me explore my darker side; the angst that I grew up with, my own issues with my parents, everybody has them, and my upbringing and things I’ve had to unlearn; the issues that I see going on in the world; how people treat people, how governments treat people, how societies treat people.”
To explore those themes — his dreams, his demons and his creativity — on this record, he allowed himself to explore the mind. “I probably was on mushrooms the entire time I made this album because it made me vulnerable. Any time I’m on any type of mushroom or something like that I’m completely honest with myself,” he says.
“I don’t need to make music the way everybody else does. I’m not making music to be popular. I’m not making music to fit a playlist. I’m not making music to make the label happy,” Croker explains.
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That honesty is essential, however he gets there. Because as he learned on his global adventures, audiences want to feel he is there with them and completely present. “What I find is everywhere I go and play, especially the further away from America I am, they want to experience something in the moment. In that moment, it’s not about the social media aspect of it, it’s not about the popularity of it, they want to experience something, and people know when you’re being genuine on the stage,” he says.
Croker turns 40 this year and, in his case, it is true with age comes wisdom. A great deal of that wisdom is learning, that in music, as is true with most everything in life, less is more. As he has realized, just because you can show off doesn’t mean you need to.
“There’s a tendency for musicians, when they’re younger, and creatives to create for other creatives,” he explains. “I’m at a point where the music I create, I want to pull in the listener. And I want the listener to get lost in it and explore something. I’m not doing that to impress them musically or even using technique to do that. … Those things have become very important to me musically, more so than taking a solo. And playing as beautifully as possible. That’s where I’m at in my career as a performer for sure.”
