Theo Croker Steps Out
Midway through June, trumpeter Theo Croker worked four nights at Manhattan’s Jazz Standard behind Star People Nation, his third release on DDB, Dee Dee Bridgewater’s Sony-licensed imprint. The self-produced, elaborately programmatic recital ran Croker “upwards of $50,000,” topping the $28,000 he spent on its 2017 predecessor, Escape Velocity, produced by drummer Kassa Overall. Both albums comprise Croker originals that reference and meld elements from swing, postbop, hip-hop, soul, funk, and different West African strains; on both, he frames his golden tone and harmonically erudite lines with layers of textured keyboards, ethereal synths, bespoke samples, polyrhythmic drum beats, and insinuating voices in ways that illuminate their melodic core. The sensibility matches what Nicholas Payton—who in 1996 recorded a two-trumpet album with Croker’s grandfather, Doc Cheatham—might describe as “Black American Music,” or B.A.M.
Only mics and amps were plugged in at the Jazz Standard. “I don’t need any bells and whistles in real time,” Croker explained a few days before. “The intensity of the music speaks for itself.” That description pinpoints the ambience of the first night’s first set, featuring pianist Michael King, bassist Russell Hall, and drummer Michael Ode. Croker wore a black wool hat over his dreadlocks, tan Spliffy jeans, a Jean-Michel Basquiat-logoed Comme des Garçons sweatshirt, and tennis shoes, no socks.
“Who doesn’t thrive off controversy? If you don’t, you’re not comfortable with yourself.”
To start, Croker sang an introductory poem to “Have You Come to Stay,” titled for a phrase from Eugene McDaniel’s lyric for “Hello to the Wind” on Bobby Hutcherson’s 1969 album . He’d described the piece as “a call to accept who you, on which he samples several heavily manipulated bars from that track, adding his own chord changes. Live, though, he pronounced the words using plangent long tones. King’s florid variations set up a trumpet solo that opened with pointillistic laser darts, then morphed into long, chromatic lines, punctuated with well-calibrated overtones.
