“It’s a fresh wind that blows against the empire.”

In many ways, these nine words encapsulate the ethos of Donny McCaslin, whose

escapades on the tenor saxophone have both embraced and sometimes repudiated

contemporary notions of jazz — often simultaneously and with a deep understanding of

what has come before and what lies ahead. Although he garnered widespread acclaim

for his stint as bandleader for David Bowie’s swansong LP Blackstar, McCaslin’s journey

to that point encompassed numerous yard markers of the up-and-coming jazzer with

boundary-busting on his mind.

McCaslin began playing the sax at 12 in Santa Cruz, CA and during his teenage years

he performed in his vibraphonist father’s band. His background and acumen inevitably

led to a full scholarship at the Berklee College of Music, a four-year stint with Gary

Burton’s quintet, and a subsequent three-year stretch with Steps Ahead, additional shift

work with Maria Schneider, Danilo Pérez, The Gil Evans Orchestra, and Elvis Costello

also dot his resumé.

The Bowie gig, obtained through the recommendation of Schneider, ultimately lit the

fuse and super-charged McCaslin’s aspirations to take his music in exhilarating new

directions and carve new pathways in what used to be called jazz fusion. For McCaslin,

this meant leaning into a hybrid of jazz and art rock, which is clearly evident in his two

most recent albums.

First came Blow (2018), which introduced searing electric guitars, programming of all

sorts, studio effects galore, and provocative lyrics sung over the top, followed by I Want

More (2023), a return to instrumental music but produced and mixed by Dave Fridmann

(Flaming Lips, MGMT, Tame Impala, Mercury Rev, Sleater-Kinney) to bring a distinctly

non-jazz consciousness to the act of creation. The striking result prompted the jazz

journal Jazzwise to declare the album “...a uniquely hard-hitting, direct, studio-driven

recording that organically joins together elements from electronica, post-rock, jazz and

improve more persuasively than perhaps anything before it.”

Strike another blow for the revolution in McCaslin’s head.

New music is always right around the corner

that underscores the insurgency in the music to come.