Written by Trombonist and composer Nabou Claerhout’s star is firmly on the rise as she shines a very welcome and much needed light on the jazz trombone. Hailing from Antwerp, her credits are already significant, with performances at festivals across the world including the North Sea Jazz Festival, London Jazz Festival, Jazz in Duketown, Salzburg Jazz Festival and the Berlin Jazzfest. Nabou also won the ‘Jong Jazztalent Gent’prize in 2021 and has since been the artist in residence at Rataplan and Flagey’s Brussels Jazz Festival.
As a researcher and educator, Nabou also has a full portfolio, working with Ghent Youth Jazz Orchestra, National Youth Jazz Orchestra, Young Metropole Orchestra, Metropole Orchestra and Ghost Trance Music & Toolbox. She explores the depth of jazz with a range of initiatives including her ‘The power of rhythm in jazz improvisation and compositions’ project where she investigated methods of utilising rhythm as a building block for jazz improvisation and compositions.
She released her debut EP ‘Hubert’ in 2019, followed by her debut album ‘You Know’ in 2021 and after winning the Jong Jazz-talent Gent prize in 2021, Nabou founded her own Trombone Ensemble and released the album ‘Trombone Ensemble Nabou Claerhout’ on W.E.R.F. Records in 2023. Her new album ‘Indigo’ is set for release in January 2026 with Edition records.
Nabou’s connection with the trombone started at a very early age before she was signed up to a music school in Brussels. Whereas many parents are not always supportive of music, Nabou’s mother told her she needed to fall in love with an instrument. A simple but significant statement that clearly stayed in Nabou’s heart, mind and soul. Pouring through music videos ( this was pre You Tube) TV and DVDs, watching live music concerts from a range of artists, Nabou considered a few instruments but none of them connected with her until she met the trombone.
It was a very abstract thing for my mother to say to me as an eight-year-old. But looking back I am really happy she said that to me. I ended up with the trombone because I felt it had such a warm sound. It reminds me of the voice of a mother. I don’t know why I say specifically mother, but that’s how it felt. It can be low, it can be a bit high, can be very warm, but it also can be very tight and maybe I felt that it represented my own mother. It also had a slide and unlike the other instruments I was exploring, it was something that also spoke to my 8-year-old self.
Now enrolled into the local music school and the start of her training, Nabou’s sister gave her the DVD of the music film ‘My First Name is Maceo’ which is where she was introduced to the saxophones of Maceo Parker and Pee Wee Ellis and Fred Wesley’s trombone. This moment hit home and raised awareness of what the trombone could do.
I remember when I was young, I told my mom, I would love to marry these guys! I totally fell in love with the way they played and that opened everything for me because the academies I attended were very classical. Their perspective of playing music at the time was mainly classical music, so my trombone playing was classical. I never really thought about it as an issue, it was more just a practical thing, getting to know the instrument. But then the first time I heard Fred Wesley playing?! It opened up my idea of the instrument. You could play popular stuff, funky stuff and this was really my first step in the jazz direction in a way.
Nabou Live at Dudelange | Photo by Guy Fonck
Nabou’s training took her to Art High School Brussels to Codarts Rotterdam, the Royal Academy of Music in London and fast forward a few years, she has since taught at Kortrijk Conservatory, the music academies of Wilrijk and Sint-Agatha-Berchem, and is currently, a master coach at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp.
Alongside her work in education, Nabou released her debut ep ‘Hubert’ (2019), her debut album ‘You Know’ (2021) and after winning the Jong Jazztalent Gent’ prize in 2021, she founded her own Trombone Ensemble and released the album Trombone Ensemble Nabou Claerhout, on W.E.R.F. Records in 2023. After a few years of extensive performing, incredible reviews, Nabou was firmly embedded and flourishing in the scene and it was time for her next album ‘Indigo’, to take shape. Due out in January on Edition Records, Indigo’ explores change, renewal and shifting human connections and displays Nabou’s growth and maturity as an instrumentalist but also as a composer.
Her debut EP ‘Hubert’ was created and released at a time when many people didn’t know of her work and so there was an amount of freedom within this. Not just freedom with practicalities but learning and reflecting on audience engagement. While the new album reflects on those experiences it was important to Nabou that is all her – her sound. I asked Nabou about her growth since her first release.
‘it always comes from what I love in music. I’m also growing up, so I think you can hear that in my music. What moves me is something different compared to six years ago. I think the new album is more mature. It’s not necessarily more intellectual because that’s not really what I want to do with music, but it feels more mature in the way that I play the trombone; more mature in the way the songs work together. If you listen to the previous albums, there is a type of sound, different vibes, but in this album, it’s more of a collage. It’s not schizophrenic! You don’t jump from one song to another one with no connection between. It feels like the things that I love – and I love a lot of different stuff!
Photo by Didier Wagner
With a large and varied portfolio of work and as an in-demand trombonist, Nabou, was working on commissions for theatre work and residencies, and when she realised it was time for a new album, she was incredibly disciplined in what she needed to do to get into that mindset. Her compositional process for this album, was a musician’s dream and she placed herself in a completely free space. Locked away, removing all distractions, including apps from her phone, Nabou spent two weeks working on the material.
What I really love to do is to put compositional weeks in my agenda so that I don’t say yes to anything else. I am a totally different person when it comes to composition weeks. Normally I’m constantly on social media, working, up late, waking up very late but when I am composing, it’s totally different. I delete all my social media apps. I do yoga in the morning; I do some meditation in the morning. I wake up at 8, all to get into that compositional mindset. It’s the only way that it works for me. I try to not play concerts because that’s a totally different vibe of practising and getting into that mindset. I love to go into the compositional process so that you can really dive in. So, for this album, I had 2 weeks to compose this album.
‘Indigo’ is described as an album of metamorphosis, exploring new collaborations, new ideas and a focus on growth, development and renewal. With Nabou leading on trombone and as the composer, the quartet includes old and new collaborators with Trui Amerlinck (double bass) Gijs Idema (guitar) and Daniel Jonkers (drums), all of whom help to beautifully shape the sound and get to the heart of the work. Nabou is very quick to point out that she is not alone in this project.
L to Right: Trui Amerlinck Daniel Jonkers, NabouClaerhout and Gijs Idema | Photo by Dave Stapleton
I have three amazing musicians around me that I am really, happy with. Daniel Jonkers on the drums is very grounded, very tight, but I’m not only talking of tightness, because it really comes from his body. I feel in a way that the album is so true to myself and I feel that also with Daniel through the way he plays, it comes straight from the heart. Gijs Idema who was actually the first guitar player of the band when we started back in 2016, and then he moved to New York but when he came back in the band and it felt so good, it felt right. These are three, very, very beautiful people and very beautiful musicians. I’m the only one on the cover, but I’m definitely not the only one who made this album.
The album title ‘Indigo’ speaks to the theme of transformation and metamorphosis present throughout the album. The indigo plant has a long history in the art world, where it has been used in ancient pigments and dyes and genuinely shaped cultures and histories. The album’s press release states that ‘when the colourless sap from the leaves of the indigo plant comes into contact with oxygen in the air, it turns vibrant colours after a fermentation process. This metaphor runs through the entire album, which moves between darkness and light, mourning and beauty, tension and breathing space.’
Nabou explains that every album has specific colours. For the first one it was yellow, then red/blue and when I was thinking about this next album, I felt the colour indigo. Then we realised that the indigo plant comes from a dirty grey mud and then works with the oxygen in the air and it becomes something beautiful. So with the title, I wanted to talk to the beauty of something that at first doesn’t really look so beautiful, like if I’m talking about an end of something when you feel it’s very heavy and you see it from a more dark side in a way, but of course there’s something that is very good in the end. Taking something from the dirt, something ugly that turns into something beautiful.
Last modified: May 4, 2026
