ONCE JASON YARDE had the basic groove and a few notes of a bassline for Where will it take you? he had to start thinking about what kind of band was going to play this music before he could take things further.
What kinds of things would influence this decision? Jason was considering the notes and the music, of course, but he was also thinking about who was going to listen to it. And he knew that if this was going to be called a ‘jazz’ piece, he had to bear in mind what some people unfairly say about jazz: that it’s mainly a music for older people, not interested in contemporary pop or urban sounds.
Jason wanted to make sure listeners didn’t know what was going to come next, keeping the surprises coming so the audience stayed with it. These thoughts helped him decide what the instrumentation should be.
Further down the composing road, this is how that combination of voice and instruments sounded.
