In conversation with Tenderlonious
Tenderlonious sits down with Undercurrent to talk family, playing with “toys”, and the organic nature of his collaborations ahead of his headline show at Brick Lane Jazz Festival 2023.
Ed ‘Tenderlonious’ Cawthorne wears many hats; that of a producer, a multi-instrumentalist, label boss, and a DJ. With decades of experience, an honesty and certainty shines through when Ed speaks about his music, and a desire to stay true to what moves him, regardless of the taste-maker's opinions.
On a gloomy Monday afternoon, through a Zoom call where Ed is surrounded by his vintage synths and framed artwork in his home studio, our conversation starts from the very beginning. Ed describes the role music played in the household as a child.
“My parents were into music growing up. They listened to people like Jean-Michell Jarre - he did a famous album growing up – Oxygene. My parents really liked him and that was quite synth-heavy”
“So yeah, they were into their music, but we weren’t all getting around the piano and singing on a Sunday, nothing like that”
Ed says with a smile. “Neither of my parents are musicians. Well, my mum, she can play the piano – not amazingly well but enough to have some fun.”
Ed is conscious of the role music plays in his son’s life, with a focus on fun and development:
“My wife takes my son to a music group once a week.. Then at home a lot of my friends have bought him things – it was his first birthday last week and Oli (Dennis Ayler) bought him a little wooden xylophone and Lorenzo (Morresi) bought him a metal xylophone too. There’s a shaker and tambourine knocking about and he has a little electronic keyboard – he loves making sounds!.
I’m not trying to make him into a musician at all though, I just want him to have fun with whatever. It’s just Classic FM on the radio in the kitchen, I’m not trying to play him John Coltrane records or anything like that” Explains Ed.
“If he tells me he wants to be a doctor or an accountant I’ll be happy – if he tells me he wants to be a musician then I’ll be worried!”
Becoming a parent is a seminal moment in anyone’s life, and Ed reflects on how this has influenced and changed his approach to music as a business:
“As I get older, I’m looking at the music scene and the younger people coming through and what people need to do now to get recognition. I don’t like what I see all that much, the whole social media thing. I’m not any good at that. It’s cool for young people to do, but I’m nearly 40 years old, I can’t behave like that on Instagram or Tiktok or whatever. I’ve kind of done my bit and I’m looking to coast now and pick and choose the things I want to do. I only want to release music when I’m good and ready. I only want to perform when the money is right!”
“Music was my primary focus every day, I used to put music first and now I put my family first.”
And that means that maybe I have to take my foot off the gas a little bit.
Tenderlonious is not Ed’s only project, he is also the lead member of the critically acclaimed jazz quartet Ruby Rushton and has played his part in a plethora of collaborative projects and remixes. Ed discusses how he distinguishes what productions are suitable for different projects.
“Particularly between Tenderlonious and Ruby Rushton, there’s definitely a distinction. Most of the Tenderlonious stuff I’ve done is studio-based, electronic solo productions. I’ve only converted a Tenderlonious tune into a Ruby Rushton tune once. I had called a rehearsal but hadn’t written anything for it, and I thought sh*t, I better bring something or else it’s getting everyone together for nothing! So, I quickly adapted a beat that I had recently finished and it ended up being a tune called ‘One Mo’ Dram’, which is on Ruby Rushton’s Ironside album. Other than that, I keep them quite separate.”
“When I recorded the Shakedown (Album: THE SHAKEDOWN featuring The 22archestra), I was given a day at Abbey Road to record for free, and I was given two day’s notice to get a band together. Originally that was offered to Ruby Rushton, but none of the guys were available so I ended up inviting whoever I could get together in time. I just had some chords and some melodies that I had been playing with, which I hadn’t finished. It was just the bare bones for some Ruby Rushton stuff. I ended up recording that by jamming those ideas with the 22archestra guys. If I hadn’t done that then I probably would have developed those melodies more and they would have become Ruby Rushton tunes.”
“I’m about to record a live Tenderlonious album and it will be more jazz-focused, with the quartet that you are going to see at the Brick Lane Jazz Festival. It’s different instrumentation and players to Ruby Rushton”
'“Pete Martin is on bass and Hamish Balfour is on piano, so the sound is different – but I still have Tim Carnegie on drums! “
I look at the Tenderlonious Quartet as a more traditional jazz setup and Ruby Rushton is more fusion, like Weather Report or something.
With Ruby I’m on synths. We have effects on the horns, it’s a bit more electronic-fused music. With Tenderlonious it’s not that, we’re playing more modal and hard-bop inspired jazz.”
As we talk, it is hard not to notice the array of equipment surrounding Ed in his studio, which he endearingly calls his “toys”:
“I’ve got a lot of these toys to play with. I’ve been collecting them for over 22 years, building my studio. I can sit down if I want and turn things on and start playing around, and it’s just me. It’s cathartic. I don’t have as much time as I used to, but in the past I’d wake up and start a tune and by the end of the day the tune would be finished. Right now though I’m trying to downsize my studio a bit. What else is quite cathartic is just getting rid of sh*t that you don’t need or use anymore.”
When asked if he misses being in his studio as much as he used to, he sums it up beautifully:
“I do and I don’t, you know. First thing in the morning and last thing at night I’ll go into my studio and just look at everything. I’m like a classic car collector; you never drive the f*cking thing. You look at it, admire it and dust it once a week, maybe fire one or two of them up.”
Fans of Tenderlonious will know all about his acclaimed releases Tek-88 and Still Flute. The latter is often referenced when defining Tenderlonious’s sound, with the combination of live flute and Detroit-influenced house grooves. Tek-88 comes across as a love letter to the iconic piece of kit, the Roland TR-808, and lets the drum machine shine through in all its glory. Both these pieces of music highlight a particular piece of equipment, but Ed explains how this is more organic than deliberate:
“With all the records I’ve ever done, I’ve never sat down and said “I’m gonna write an album this month” and create a theme around it. Whether is Still Flute or Tek-88, I don’t really do it like that, it just kind of happens. I just go through phases where I like being in the studio and make loads of tunes, and when I start to feel like I have enough to put together an album or an EP, then I start shortlisting the ones I think are the strong tunes, and I’ll finish them.”
“The reason I did Tek-88 is that I had just bought the 808 and I was experimenting with it, and I had a few weeks where that was all I was using for drums. I spent all this time with the 808 smashing out these beats, and I named one of the tunes Tek-88. It was then that I started to think that this could be a nice EP. My brother-in-law is into LEGO so I asked him if he could make me a life size replica of the 808, which he did, so then a nice theme just came together.”
Tenderlonious collaborations have crossed borders and continents, each producing very different pieces of work in which the cultures involved are at the fore. From Poland to Pakistan via Italy, Ed breaks down the organic nature of these collaborations and the importance in immersing yourself in these cultures.
“I’ve put the feelers out about certain bands or movements that I’ve been inspired by. I might have talked about it in an interview or referenced it in a song title, and from that people have approached me. That’s what happened when I collaborated with EABS. Lucas, one of the guys that runs Astigmatic Records, approached me saying he was the manager for a band in Wroclaw in Poland and that a collab would be cool, so that’s how that began, and I really enjoyed working with those guys.”
“In fact, the Jaubi collaboration was connected through the Astigmatic guys too. Oli (Dennis Ayler) and I were having a beer and talking about this idea to go to India, and Lucas came to meet with us to discuss an upcoming trip to record in Poland. I was telling him that I’m really inspired by Indian classical music and ,especially as a flute player, the bansuri. He brought up Jaubi, as they had released a record on Astigmatic, and suggested that we go to Pakistan instead of India.
“So that all came about organically. It was something I pushed for but other people came in and helped facilitate it. I only have to have an idea and share it with one or two people and it seems to happen, I don’t force it too much”
“Then working in Italy with Lorenzo - I was booked for an Italian jazz festival years ago and Lorenzo’s band was playing earlier in the day. This is when I had just done On Flute, and people wanted to book me to do these solo shows around Europe. I kept going to these places and if there were other bands there I would end up inviting local musicians to jam with me – I did it in Istanbul, Paris (with Amp Fiddler) and then in Italy – and that’s how me and Lorenzo met”
Lorenzo had been playing just before me and I did a couple of tunes by myself and then asked if he wanted to jump up. Byron the Aquarius was there too, I think he was DJing after me and he plays keys. So I said ‘hey you play keys, and Lorenzo you play guitar’, and I curated this live jam during my set, which was good fun!”
“That got me and Lorenzo talking. I had recently bought this Italian Library Music reissue on vinyl and it turned out that Lorenzo used to work for the record label. He knew the music and was really passionate about it, so that got the conversation going between us and we stayed in touch. We then started to put together this project, and Lorenzo already had some ideas, so we finished that up and made the Cosmica Italiana album. That was that collaboration, all very organic and easy.”
“The irony for me that I see in the media is that London is this ‘melting pot’, and you don’t have to leave the city to come across every culture, which is true, but it’s still very London.”
Travelling to places like Pakistan to record music brings a different element to the music, and the same with going to Poland or to Italy. You immerse yourself in the culture and not just the idea of the culture or the idea of the music, but you actually live the culture.”
“I understand that we live in a world where we can send each other files within minutes, and Lorenzo and I had to do that a couple of times because of Covid travel restrictions. But the core stuff was done in person and that’s why it took so long for the album to come out. I was adamant that I wanted to record it in Italy because that’s what gave it it’s authenticity, and the same with the Polish guys. With the EABS album, Slavic Spirits, we climbed a sacred mountain near to Wroclaw called Sleza, which has historic significance within the Slavic folklore”
“Things like that were really important not only to me but to everyone else, to get that feeling that this is what we are here to do, we’re embracing the culture. I’m not afraid to travel to places unknown, I get a buzz from it.”
It’s nearing a decade since Tenderlonious and 22a’s first release, which laid down a marker as a force in the London Jazz Scene. Ed reflects on his association with London and how that hasn’t always been his doing.
“As much as 22a has been associated with the resurgence of UK jazz, even if it might just be in the small print, the bigger media names have never really bothered to get to know what the label is really about. I’ve done more house records than I’ve done jazz records, but no one ever talks about that. It’s fine really, at the end of the day that’s the nature of media, everything needs to be pigeon-holed. I cared at first when they kept saying 22a is from Peckham. I never lived in Peckham, some of the guys lived in Peckham and the first interview we did for Dummy Mag was in Peckham, and somehow from that the media kept saying 22a is a Peckham-based label.”
“With 22a I never really wanted to identify with anything, whether it be with London or the UK. I never wanted it to be a ‘London Label’, I just wanted it to be a label, London or not.”
“London was fun when I was 17 and I was DJing every Thursday night in Brixton. That was in 2002, more than twenty years ago. It felt exciting! I really liked London at that time. I was up in North London producing grime, hanging out with MCs everyday, I was immersed in that and I found it exciting. As I’ve got older though I don’t look for that buzz anymore.”
Despite having a reputation in jazz as a multi-instrumentalist, Ed’s career as a DJ precedes this, spinning records since 1998. There’s a mischievous look in Ed’s eye as he reminisces fondly on his days playing at Drum and Bass nights alongside his friends.
“I went by Edward ElSegundo, but they used to abbreviate it to Segundo - it’s because of the Tribe Called Quest tune “I left my Wallet in El Segundo”, I used to love Tribe in school! I was DJing in clubs with Ed Rush and Optical, Grooverider, and a few other local Drum and Bass guys. I was playing every Thursday in Brixton at the Fridge Bar, next to The Fridge which is now Electric, and my friends used to play at DogStar on Coldharbour Lane. We’ve been doing this since a long time ago. I only found a flyer the other day from when I supported GrooveRider in 2002 at a Drum n Bass night down in Salisbury!”
As our chat winds down and it’s his turn to take over dad duties, Ed tells us what he is listening to now.
“Right now, I’m listening to Jackie Mclean, the alto sax player. I got really into him. I never really touched on him before because I wasn’t really into alto until I started playing it. That’s the sound that has really appealed to me and that’s where my ears are at now.”
You can catch Tenderlonious and his quartet live at 93 Feat East on Friday 14th April as part of Brick Lane Jazz Festival 2023.