Theo Croker & Sullivan Fortner
Biography Theo Croker & Sullivan Fortner
Theo Croker
(born July 18, 1985 in Leesburg, Florida) is an American jazz musician.
Theo Croker is a storyteller who speaks through his trumpet. A GRAMMY Award-nominated artist, composer, producer, thought leader, and influencer, he is a creative who rejects boundaries and lets his voice ring through the music.
After seven years living in Shanghai, Croker's seething original sound crash-landed on 2014's Dee Dee Bridgewater-assisted album "Afro Physicist." Following the success of 2016's "Escape Velocity," he soared into a new stratosphere in 2019 with "Star People Nation." The album received a nomination in the "Best Contemporary Instrumental Album'' category at the 62nd GRAMMY Awards. The New York Times called it "an album that ranges from swirling hip-hop beats to driving swing to ravishing passages of African percussion."
Through it all, Croker's unobtrusive trumpet playing holds his small band together with verve and poise. Along the way, he's also lent his sound to platinum-selling albums from J. Cole to Ari Lennox and toured the globe many times with his band. In 2020, amid the global pandemic, he retreated to his childhood home and wrote his sixth full-length album, "BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST" [Sony Music Masterworks].
BLK2LIFE || A FUTURE PAST is a contemporary oratorio inspired by the forgotten hero's journey through the universal origins of being black. On the album, Theo unpacks moments of heroism, trials, suffering, awakening and apotheosis in a musical pastiche brought to life by a host of other cultural renegades and held together by his playing. Traditions of the past, foundations of the present and explorations of the future. A sonic celebration & reclamation of Afro origins.
Sullivan Fortner
For more than a decade, Sullivan Fortner has been stretching deep-rooted talents as a pianist, composer, band leader and uncompromising individualist. The GRAMMY Award-winning artist and educator out of New Orleans received international praise as both key player and producer for his collaborative work on The Window, alongside Cecile McLorin Salvant, and earned a 2023 GRAMMY nomination for his provocative arrangement of “Optimistic Voices/No Love Dying” from her 2022 release Ghost Song.
As a solo leader he has issued Aria (2015), Moments Preserved (2018) and Solo Game (2024) to critical acclaim, the lattermost receiving 4-star reviews in DownBeat and France’s Telerama Magazine. Slated for release in 2025, his forthcoming trio recording Southern Nights features Peter Washington and Marcus Gilmore.
Winner of the 2024 DownBeat Critics Poll for Rising Star Jazz Group: Sullivan Fortner Trio, the prolific artist has enjoyed creative associations with Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Diane Reeves, Etienne Charles and John Scofield; his frequent and longtime collaborators have included Ambrose Akinmusire, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Stefon Harris, Kassa Overall, Tivon Pennicott, Peter Bernstein, Nicholas Payton, Billy Hart, Gary Bartz, Chief Adjuah and the late Roy Hargrove.
Playing solo or leading an orchestra, Fortner engages harmony and rhythmic ideas through curiosity and clarity. Coming up in New Orleans, he began playing piano at age 7, earning his Bachelor of Music from Oberlin Conservatory and Master of Music in Jazz Performance from Manhattan School of Music (MSM). A champion of mentorship, Fortner has offered masterclasses at MSM, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), Purdue University, Lafayette Summer Music Workshop, Belmont University and Oberlin Conservatory where he held a faculty position and subsequently returned as visiting professor of jazz piano.
A highly-sought improviser, Fortner has performed at Snug Harbor, New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, Sweet Lorraine’s and The Jazz Playhouse in New Orleans, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jazz Standard and Smalls Jazz Club in New York City. He’s appeared at Newport, Monterey, Discover, Tri-C and Gillmore Keyboard jazz festivals. In 2019, Fortner brought his band to the historic Village Vanguard for a week-long engagement he would reprise in 2020 as a virtual performance during lockdown. His notable studio contributions include work on Etienne Charles’s Kaiso (Culture Shock, 2011), Donald Harrison’s Quantum Leap (FOMP, 2010), and Theo Croker’s The Fundamentals (Left Sided Music, 2007).
