Theo Croker - Dream Manifest (2025) [Official Digital Download]

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, Fla., and São 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.”

TRACKLIST

1. Theo Croker - prelude 3
2. Theo Croker - one pillow
3. Theo Croker - 64 joints
4. Theo Croker - up frequency (higher)
5. Theo Croker - light as a feather
6. Theo Croker - high vibrations
7. Theo Croker - crystal waterfalls
8. Theo Croker - we still wanna dance
9. Theo Croker - postlude 3



Thanks to the Original customer.