Edward Cawthorne was the son of a military family. He spent most of his childhood overseas. The UK boarding school further exacerbated any rebellious tendencies that Cawthorne had from his regimented, but rootless upbringing. Cawthorne, unlike his contemporaries in jazz, did not receive a traditional jazz education nor the osmosis that comes with being a teenager living in urban areas. Woking is not Detroit when it comes to musical history. Cawthorne may not have had a pleasant suburban childhood, but it was a rough one. He listened to drum’n’bass in his bedroom and made loops. A few years spent as a disaffected beat-maker in the grime scene was not enough to make it a career in music. Distractions were sought or imposed everywhere. Cawthorne was in a low place when the soprano clarinet – or “golden clavet” as he called it – entered his consciousness. He recalls that he heard Lateef’s music and saw the soprano playing in the shop’s window. “Maybe that’s what I needed.” “I inquired with the man in the shop and he looked at my rude boy stance. It was an encounter that he remembers with great pride as the main character of a story who enjoys being written off. Cawthorne has that stance today. It’s striking to see a tattooed jazz musician performing on stage wearing a Slazenger tracksuit. He whips up his hood and grabs young puppy Rocco as if he were a prizefighting dog. He speaks for nearly two hours uninterruptedly. However, his accents seamlessly switch between his rude boy stance to crisp middle-class articulations. These are just a few of his assumptions. There’s no separating Ed Cawthorne and the music he makes with Tenderlonious. He is a self-taught jazz saxophonist who has seventeen years of experience in beat-making. His record label, 22a, is financially independent and respected. There are three major musical outlets, Tenderlonious Ruby Rushton, 22archestra and Tenderlonious. With a schedule that moves from Bussey Building and Ronnie Scott’s in just days, this story has helped to revive a genre that was once beset with elitism and establishment pretence Things change dramatically after a few years. As a 23-year-old, Cawthorne was able to play grade one and four saxophones. Crumly, a member of the Soka Gakkai International Buddhist movement (SGI), gave Cawthorne much more than musical foundations. He opened a door to spirituality which, although it was short-lived only deepened the experience of learning how to play music. Crumly’s passing left Cawthorne devastated (“I loved him very much. He was like an uncle to me, and I felt like him really loved me”, he recalls. After Crumly’s death, Cawthorne was devastated. However, he rediscovered his love for music and honed the ability to emotionally articulate himself. From thevinylfactory.com, legends such as Yusef Lateef or John Coltrane are a good place.
