The lighter the color the longer your shingles will last.

Be sure the asbestos is removed by a licensed abatement contractor and taken to a legal dump.

Use white. Try and find some with high heat emmitance and lots of reflectivity. EnergyStar type roofing. You're power bill will reflect that significantly.

Look carefully at local white asphalt/fiberglass roofs. Years ago, they used to shed granules sooner than colored roofs. A white roof of a given pitch was always more difficult to walk on because the granules were looser. If it were my roof, I'd get a color like a very light gray, not even as dark as a pastel gray. When the white roof granules shed, you more or less wind up with light gray anyway, but with fewer granules.

chuckR

Yuck, a white roof! Wouldn't that look dingy fast? Although I'm in Pennsylvania, we don't have extreme heat.

I used Timberline Weathered Wood shingles on my brick ranch. Do a search for the "Rambler to Cottage Style" posting to see how it came out.

Have you considered the Slateline asphalt shingles? They look good with brick, and come in lighter colors.

I got samples from my contractor and laid them out on the roof before deciding (easy to do on a ranch). Much better than looking at small samples in a book.

While not brick we are doing red siding with white trim. I am having a terrible time with the roof as well. What I have noticed in looking around, it that almost without exception red houses have gray roofs. Even old red barns have galvanized gray metal. Anyway, DH is a roofer and weathered wood (in all the brannds) is one of the most popular colors. It is very neutral and still rich looking.

I used Owens Corning's custom design web site to pick a type of shingle and color. You can have your contractor give you a price for each grade. Once you get to the web site select your house type then at the next page select the "custom" tab and then pick which shingle grade you are interested in and then below you will see all the shingles in that line. Select one and you will be amazed. You can save the pictures to file to show your contractor. Also you can experiment with siding and veneer types by selecting the "Collections" tab.

I used this site to pick my siding color, type and color of shingles.

Here is a link that might be useful: Owens Corning

Some things such as mortar color and trim style/color will play a role in deciding on workable roofing colors. The brick itself may even have other tones in it. I have a roman brick home with colored mortar that works with browns, yellows and some greens. I am actually getting ready to use a light minty green roofing.

I'm not a fan of having the roofing over power the aesthetics of the brick or look busy next to it, such as with architectual asphalt shingles. I think many smaller homes can be overpowered easily taking away from the nice quality construction and materials that exist.

Another consideration that I think can look smashing is standing seam metal roofs.