Colin Steele

Colin Steele: Stramash

by Chris May
July 6, 2009

According to Scottish trumpeter Colin Steele's sleeve notes, a life-threatening quantity of whisky was consumed during the composing process for Stramash, an exuberant bacchanal of jazz and Scottish folk music. Steele took himself away to the island of Islay, off the west coast of Scotland, to focus on the writing and to embrace, frequently and enthusiastically, that special mixture of “magic, madness and witchcraft...that only whisky can bring." In a health warning, Steele observes that he would certainly be dead ...