It’s there in full effect on the first song, ‘By Ourselves’. As with any decent piece of musical theatre, the first instrument we hear on the record is the piano. One hand taps a melody, the other presses out the rhythm. This refrain is actually from the first few seconds of a Charles Mingus improvisation called ‘Myself When I Am Real’. Out of the hundred or so albums Mingus made, that LP – Mingus Plays Piano – is his only solo performance, and the only one on which he set aside the upright bass and sat at the piano instead. When Devonté heard that part for the first time, he rushed to the studio and clipped the MP3, knowing that it was special. He later removed Mingus’ hands and played the part himself, rewriting the notes towards an apex which wasn’t there in the original, and wrapping a vocal melody around them – turning one melodic moment from a jazz improvisation into a pop song.