Cobblestone Jazz makes future jazz house that is the sound of now, blending jazz improvisation with modern dancefloor electronics in a way that these two worlds make more sense audibly than on paper. Starting the album off ambient, Cobblestone Jazz leads you to believe this will be a quiet ambient affair. With a name like they have, you might tend to dream of small towns with old-world mystique, but as "Hired Touch" kicks in with micro beats and techy-lo-fi-synth, the lounge goes out the window.

1. Waiting Room
2. Hired Touch
3. Lime In Da Coconut
4. Slap the Back
5. PBD
6. 23 Seconds
7. Change Your Apesuit
8. Saturday Night
9. Peace Offering
10. W
11. Live at Mondo (Madrid, , May 10th, 2007)
12. Dump Truck
13. India In Me

Not to say there isn’t jazz here. It’s just not an abstract trumpet or sax wailing away. Cobblestone Jazz is more into the spirit behind jazz, which is to perform and capture that performance in the moment of ideas connecting to fingers, toes or whatever body part makes the sound happen. CJ shows the maturity to flesh out the songs and nothing is hurried as songs stretch close to the ten minute mark at times.

Their music sometimes feels like a throwback to the Acid Jazz days of the mid-90’s but with more refinement of the sometimes jagged sample-based grooves. The overall feeling from the album is electronics first and jazz, creeping in from time to time, second.

"PBD" comes across as an ambient house thumper with sweeping arpeggiated synths. "Peace Offering" has vocoder vocals appear in and out of blips and grooving bass that captures the classic Naked Music vibe while still retaining an original approach. "W" finishes off the first disc at full future party mode with more vocoder vocals and straight-up house beats and claps to boot.

The second disc comes with a forty+ minute live set and two more tracks to total almost two hours of music. It can feel a bit massive but you go out to a club all night and don’t worry about the beats. So pop it in and have a micro-house party where the snobs in the corner (like me) can talk about which model reverb was used while the kids with the jimmy legs can get their groove on. Mature music built on playful bleeps and beats to help you act a little immature.

~ Dedric Moore

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