For many years now, Joo Kraus has quite rightly been one of the renowned jazz trumpeters in our latitudes. Although Joo was not brought up with the trumpet in hiscradle, it was placed next to his school book. His father already played the trumpet and taught him the first chords.
Catapulted into the scene at the age of 19 by winning the first prize at the national competition “Jugend musiziert”, he gained five years of stage experience with the electro-rock band “Kraan”. With Hellmut Hattler, Joo founded the hip-jazz duo “TabTwo” in the early 1990s. The rhythm section and effects already came from the computer – a pretty groundbreaking innovation at the beginning of the 90s. “TabTwo” played all over Europe, in Asia and the USA, produced eight albums and wereone of the biggest influencers in this genre worldwide.
In the 2000s, Joo Kraus increasingly wrote his own songs. He produced his album Sueño in Havana’s oldest recording studio and arranged songs by Michael Jackson into an intellectually sophisticated bow to the King of Pop. Joo Kraus – that is many decades of international stage and studio experience,countless worldwide tours, 2 Grammy nominations, the Echo Jazz as best German trumpeter and 5 German Jazz Awards in gold.
And no matter if Joo performs with the Cuban pianist Omar Sosa, with Paula Morelenbaum, as a guest of Klaus Doldinger, with the SWR Big Band or with his own quintet, there is always his characteristic tone: modest and powerful, rousing joy of playing paired with sensitive attentiveness for the fellow musicians.
