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In April 2006 Colin will touring his new group 'Colin Steele's Stramash'. This involves his jazz quintet of Dave Milligan (piano), Aidan O' Donnell (double bass), Stu Ritchie (drums) and Phil Bancroft (saxophones), with three of Scotland's finest fiddlers: Aidan O'Rourke, Chris Stout and Charlie McKerron, with Rory Campbell (bagpipes and whistles) and Su-a Lee (cello). This is a Scottish Arts Council/Lottery funded tour.

Press Release
Five years ago, Colin Steele wrote a piece of music that was to change his
life. Scotland's leading jazz trumpeter was renowned as an exponent of the
classic jazz repertoire - a lover of Louis Armstrong, Rex Stewart, Chet
Baker and Miles Davis. He could be cool, and funky too. He'd been acclaimed
as a founder member of many key Scottish groups, from the band which
started the entire jazz renaissance, The John Rae Collective, to the
Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. He'd played with Hue and Cry, run dance
jazz clubs, and toured all over Europe, living for a while in France and
Italy.

"Twilight Dreams" was the name of the piece of music, and it marked the
moment of self-discovery. It was the point at which he brought all of his
remarkable jazz talent home to Scotland, and put it together with the
traditional folk musics which he loved. The music he wrote was a totally
fresh and unique amalgam of jazz inspiration and improvisation and
beautiful folk melodies. He formed a new Quintet to play it, and released
two albums on Caber, "Twilight Dreams" and "Journey Home", the second of
which was voted the No.1 Jazz Album Of The Year by the leading jazz
magazine, Jazz Review, and the BBC Album Of The Year by popular vote of BBC
radio listeners.

He was signed up by one of the leading independent jazz labels in the world
at the moment ( and the people responsible for such artists as EST), ACT
Records, based in Munich. They released " Through The Waves" last year, and
took Steele's music on to a new stage. Now he is regularly being
interviewed by Norwegian or French or German media eager to hear about the
new Scottish sound in jazz. His recent ten day tour of Germany included
many triumphant concerts, critically acclaimed and sold out.

His dream has just kept singing in his head. He'd already taken the
original "Twilight Dreams" and re-written it as "Variations On A Dream" for
his second album, but he couldn't help himself from developing the music
further. Right from the start, it was the sounds of pipes, whistles and
fiddles that he heard, and he re-imagined their sounds as played by a Jazz
Quintet. Last winter he came to realise that the music needed to grow and
to be played by the instruments which were its inspiration. So, he went to
Islay for a week, locked himself away with some good local produce, and
started the writing for Stramash, a new band, which features all of the
delights of his great Quintet, extended by five additional musicians - four
from the folk world and one from the classical milieu, all recognised stars
in their own worlds.

Stramash are Colin Steele(trumpet), Phil Bancroft(saxophones), Dave
Milligan(piano), Aidan O'Donnell(double bass), Stu Ritchie(drums), Aidan O'
Rourke, Charlie McKerron and Chris Stout(fiddles), Rory Campbell(bagpipes
and whistles) and Su-a Lee(cello).

They make their debut on tour in Scotland in April, under the auspices of
the Scottish Arts Council's touring scheme, Tune Up..

"This music had to happen." he says. "It's a culmination of everything
that I've played , written and heard to date".

The first tune he wrote was a new interpretation of "Twilight Dreams". The
fiddles and pipes interweave with saxophone and trumpet and their sounds
have provided the composer with new inspirations, ideas, and, he says, a
much clearer presentation of what he's been hearing in his head since he
first imagined this new music.

Lovers of his music will wonder what this extraordinary mix of jazz and
folk and classical music might sound like. After all there have been many
attempts by others. Steele says it will be founded on the best of his jazz
writing, will be clearly Scottish and will play on the strengths of all the
musicians. There will be more arrangement, more melodies, more changes of
settings (including a string quartet featuring cellist, Su-a Lee). It
sounds like it will be an amplification of the joyous, stirring, uplifting
and brilliant music, which many regard as the best that 21st Century
Scotland has produced to date.

Will it sound like a chamber version of Unusual Suspects, the folk Big Band
in which Steele is featured under the baton of his friend and the pianist
in Stramash, Dave Milligan? Steele throws his hands up. "No, Unusual
Suspects is a folk-based unit. Stramash is far more jazz. There's
improvisation on everything, but that doesn't mean that folk audiences
won't like it"

We'll find out how Steele's Dreams are realised when the band takes the
stage on April 4th in Castle Douglas as he launches Stramash!

4th April Lochside Theatre, Castle Douglas
5th April Tolbooth, Stirling
6th April Blue Lamp, Aberdeen
7th April Queen's Hall, Edinburgh
8th April Byre Theatre, St Andrews
9th April The Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow