April 2019
PDX Jazz and Soul’d Out present Theo Croker
“Theo Croker has been generating momentum in the jazz world for a while, but 2019 may prove the year he blasts through the stratosphere.” — Jazziz “There isn’t a reason in the world why people who enjoy jazz musicians in other contexts couldn’t find something to embrace dearly in Mr. Croker’s music, which is timeless and of-the-moment. It goes someplace very special in concert.” — Wall Street Journal As the grandson of the late venerable trumpeter Doc Cheatham, and former student of legendary jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd, trumpeter, composer, bandleader and multi-instrumentalist Theo Croker naturally follows an internal need to compose. Learning to play the trumpet at age 11 after hearing Cheatham play in New York City, by his teens Croker was studying music formally at the Douglas Anderson School…
Buy Tickets | Find out more »May 2019
PDX Jazz presents Kendrick Scott Oracle
“Kendrick Scott has become the Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, and Tony Williams of his generation,” says the renowned trumpeter and bandleader Terence Blanchard of his longtime drummer who makes his own Blue Note debut with the release of a remarkable new album, We Are The Drum. “He’s a brilliant mind bringing innovation to the music at the same time as creating a safe place for young talent to develop and grow.” That kind of musical apprenticeship is key to the development of young jazz artists as Blanchard well knows having himself spent pivotal years with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. In the decade that Scott occupied the drum throne in Blanchard’s band, he had the opportunity to learn first-hand from an established master who gave Scott…
Buy Tickets | Find out more »