“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.
A graduate of the Berklee School of Music, Donny McCaslin has had a saxophone in his hands from his earliest years and has integrated the entire range of sounds that a tenor sax can produce into his repertoire: from mainstream modern to funky fusion to laid-back balmy ballads, all flavored with his own experimental style. While best recognized by the music-loving public for his contributions to “Blackstar”, David Bowie’s final studio album in 2016, McCaslin’s interrogatory approach to jazz as a popular American music is myriad. Donny has played with Gary Burton, Steps Ahead, the Gil Evans Orchestra, George Gruntz, Danilo Perez, Maria Schneider and many more. Donny has a genre-melding approach to music and brings together angular avant jazz, funk, ambient soundscapes, and exotica.