Cobblestone Jazz Interview

We chat to Danuel Tate from the awesome techno-jazz outfit.

Mathew Jonson, Danuel Tate and Tyger Dhula are the spellchecker-bothering trio that make up Cobblestone Jazz. Playing together for years as an improvised live outfit at venues ranging from Cocoon in Frankfurt to the Montreux Jazz Festival, they finally got together in the studio to put all of that live genius into an album – ’23 Seconds’, which came out on !K7 in October. A Cobblestone Jazz show demonstrates the outfit as a ‘pragmatic and responsive unit’, focusing on live performance and improvisation.

Cobblestone Jazz joined James Holden for his Border Community night here at The End – so we caught up with Danuel for a quick interview before the party.

Endclub.com: Can you give us a quick run-through of how Cobblestone Jazz came about – how did you all start working together?

Cobblestone Jazz: We originally were four in Vancouver with The Mole (as The Modern Deep Left Quartet). Dhula, me and The Mole moved to Montreal but we got robbed of all our studio equipment. So Dhula and me came back to Vancouver…hung out with Mathew again… kept playing at parties and clubs…and it went from there.

And what roles do you each take musically?

Mathew brings the Roland SH-101 synthesiser, basslines, other synths, drum machines and mixing. Dhula looks after the sample arrangements and mixing. I provide the Rhodes Piano, Roland SVC-350 Vocoder and more synths.

Who wears the trousers in the group?

Mathew I guess…but only designer ones…

How did you find the transition from being essentially a live outfit to putting out Cobblestone Jazz's ‘23 Seconds’?

Really fun. It was a lot of work, but we learned a lot for the next one. We love hanging out in the studio together so it worked really well.

And are your live performances of the album tracks different from the album versions?

They’re always really different. We are always busy making new stuff and we have had a lot more time together in the studio since Mathew has moved to Berlin. It’s been great, we’ve heard some amazing music at the parties we have played which affects the live performances.

We’re looking forward to seeing your live show here at the weekend– what’s your live setup going to be?

We will see. Probably SH-101, Rhodes Piano, vocoder, samples, drum machines…and a whole bunch of cables. We have played a lot recently and are stretching away from our tunes more and more, and this combined with hanging out in the studio means that we are finding new ways to use our gear… so who knows…

Do you approach each show differently depending on the venue – eg a club versus a jazz festival?

Sure …it’s best to fit the party. We’re totally looking forward to playing with James Holden again…we love his shit…

23 seconds isn’t a large amount of time. What can you do in 23 seconds?

Probably download our album illegally for free!

For The End’s birthday, we’re having a ‘heroes’ party. Who is your hero?

Our booking agent!

And finally, what’s next for the members of Cobblestone Jazz now that the album’s released? More work together, or separate projects?

We are doing lots of things together as well as our own stuff. We’ve got some Cobblestone Jazz remixes coming out, and we are working on albums for Wagon Repair as well.

Published: 3/12/2007

More from...