The Color of Angels

5-STARS "The Color Of Angels" by the sextet of trombonist, composer and arranger Doug Scarborough presents a collection of new compositions that fuse Western music with traditional Middle Eastern music. The famous trombonist Bill Watrous describes the album as "some of the most interesting, original music coming from anybody in a long long time". Scarborough teaches at Whitman College in Walla Walla (Washington) and has been working for a long time to expand the jazz language with rhythms and harmonies from countries and regions that are not immediately associated with jazz. To do this, he has engaged the violinist Akram Abdulfattah and the darbuka virtuoso Mustafa Boztüy, who together with Jeremy Siskind (p), Damian Erskine (el-b) and Reinhardt Melz (dr) celebrate Scarborough's compositions, which are strongly influenced by Middle Eastern music in terms of rhythm and harmony. The leader himself is an outstanding soloist, who lets the trombone become a trombone choir on some tracks ("The Everything", "Arabesque"). Siskin shines on the piano with virtuoso and intense improvisations ("Tinder And Spark", "You Are Brave Enough"). And Erskine surprises with his excellent playing on the electric bass and forms a great rhythm team with the always dynamic drummer Melz.