Joo Kraus

Born in Ulm, Germany, in 1966, Joo Kraus has since the 1980s developed a career located between jazz, funk, pop, urban grooves, and blended music, with a trumpet and bugle playing that moves fluidly between improvisation and more written formats. Trained at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich, he first appeared alongside deWinkelHattler, then joined Kraan in the late 1980s, before founding in 1991 with bassist Hellmut Hattler the duo Tab Two, a project that helped define hip-jazz and acid jazz in Europe during the 1990s. In parallel, and after this period, Joo Kraus has pursued a solo career open to cross-genre crossings, from big band to soulful, Latin and lounge colors, as in Public Jazz Lounge (2003), Basic Jazz Lounge - The Ride (2006), Sueño (2008), Songs from Neverland (2010), We Are Doing Well (2021) and No Excuse (2024). His career also includes collaborations with the SWR Big Band, Omar Sosa, Ralf Schmid, De-Phazz, Jazzkantine and Mezzoforte. Joo Kraus thus performs on contemporary jazz stages where melody, rhythm and openness to transversal formats play a central role.