Colin Steele

Born in Scotland, Steele launched his professional trumpet career in 1987 with tours alongside Hue And Cry, yet soon concluded that pop held insufficient appeal for him to remain in that field. Following a two-year stay in France, he relocated to London and pursued jazz studies at the Guildhall School of Music. In that era he simultaneously collaborated in Scotland with the John Rae Collective. Upon completing his studies in the early 1990s, Steele performed across multiple European countries before settling back in Scotland in 1996. Expanding his approach to blend funk, Latin, and contemporary dance elements with jazz, he founded the live-music venue Midnight Blue inside Edinburgh’s Café Graffiti. Alongside vocalist Cathie Rae he presented the production A Tribute To Chet Baker at the Edinburgh Festival. The ensembles with which he maintains connections encompass Melting Pot, a jazz-funk outfit, and Mas Que Nada, a Latin-jazz ensemble—both under his leadership—as well as the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and the Subie Coleman Band.

Among the artists and groups Steele has recorded with are Chizuko Yoshihiro, Tom Bancroft, Todd Gordon, Melanie O’Reilly, Larry Coryell, Aqua Bassino, Ambisonic, and Demusphere. Twilight Dreams, an album for which he wrote every composition, received arrangements from pianist David Milligan and featured a guest appearance by Julian Argüelles; it earned widespread critical acclaim. Steele’s rounded tonal depth, lyrical warmth, and precise command of every register have established him among the most discussed and respected trumpeters on the British scene of the early 2000s.