MT: You've described yourself as ‘spontaneous’ and ‘disciplined’; are these contradictory?
NY: To be a jazz musician and on top of your game, you have to practise, and this includes improvisation. People who don't understand improvisation think it just comes ‘out of thin air’. There are so many ways of engaging with it. Sometimes you can limit yourself to just a few notes. Quite often, people want to throw in the whole gamut of what they know – a mix of Lydian, blues and pentatonic scales, or a chord substitution – all in bar 1. Most great jazz musicians play inside the [chord] changes, even though it sounds like they're being ‘out there’.
MT: So you practise improvisation within the changes; it's not a question of licks?
NY: At times you might need licks. We do a ‘lick-of-the week’ in my Saturday classes. Jazz is a language; you can learn it in a linguistic, mathematical or artistic way, but there's a sweet spot in the middle with all those things joined up. Learning a lick gets you into the language.
MT: Are we also talking about motifs here?
NY: Yes, and understanding what motifs are about, or their context. If you're circling around a harmony and know why you're doing it on that particular chord, then you can use a similar approach on a different chord. For example, if my students circle around the third degree of the scale or major third of a chord in a chromatic way, it's a decoration – but they know which note they're approaching [or encircling]. You have to learn the basics, like guide tones and scales, but then how to decorate these and where you're landing.
MT: This sounds like a lot of theory prep, and hard work as well as discipline. Is it?
NY: Whether you're an accomplished artist or just starting out, you need devices to encourage the muse to show up. And to identify what you need to know. If you don't know the F-sharp major arpeggio, just do that for a week, for 10 minutes [at a time] and then come back. As to hard work, jazz is a high art form. You may see pictures of jazz musicians wearing shades and looking cool, but it doesn't mean they've not put in the hard work. Charlie Parker was probably one of the most hard-working people on the planet.
MT: What was your own music education like?
NY: I taught myself piano from the age of three. In my teens I learned at school. A great thing about the 1980s was free school instrumental lessons – I'm from a single parent household and my mum could never have afforded to pay (even though she was very supportive). My school piano teacher was amazing, and took me to my first concert at the Royal Festival Hall, when I was into Beethoven. I'd always had the word ‘jazz’ in my head, [even though] I didn't know what it was like or how to access it. Then a neighbour gave me some sheet music, which I studied, including the symbols. Another teacher said, ‘You're going to have a career in jazz’, which stayed with me. When I studied saxophone with Don Rendell, he said, ‘Go and listen to John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis’ – not just them, but also their pianists.
MT: What have you learned from teaching?
NY: There are different ways of learning. Quite often, music attracts people of a neurodivergent persuasion. We have to find different ways of teaching, of engaging; it can't just be talk, talk, talk. You have to allow yourself to make mistakes in a safe space where everyone's comfortable together. The key to great community is an environment that is non-competitive yet still pushes you. It's about allowing people to enter the space knowing they're not going to be judged.
MT: What can teachers do to boost their confidence in jazz and improvisation?
NY: There needs to be more CPD. But it's also about being confident in yourself and what you are teaching; if you're not, the kids will pick up on this. You can't teach something that you're not passionate about, or that isn't ingrained. So, to gain confidence, listen to John Coltrane or Eric Bibb, live the music, go to gigs. Then go to your piano or other instrument, think about something and play without judgement. Don't think, ‘I'm not very good at this.’ Just play until you are good – because you will get good if you keep going.
MT: Which teachers left a lasting impression?
NY: In addition to my incredible piano teachers at school, and Don Rendall, Ian Carr at the Weekend Arts College in Kentish Town gave me a massive boost. He would always bring in a smorgasbord of incredible pieces by Eberhard Weber, Wayne Shorter and others, and he encouraged me to write. In fact, a piece of mine (written by a girl in a class of boys!) was accepted and kept in the group's pad – not everybody's chart made the pad. Ian would also come to my gigs, and told Alyn Shipton once that he was really pleased to have got me composing, which was beautiful.
