Donny McCaslin Group

With three Grammy nominations and twelve albums to his name, saxophonist Donny McCaslin is widely regarded as one of jazz’s most innovative artists and band leaders. In 2014, David Bowie made a visit to hear McCaslin and company at the 55 Bar in Greenwich Village. Soon after, Bowie began corresponding with McCaslin, forming a new collaboration and friendship that transpired through the recording of Blackstar until Bowie’s passing. Now McCaslin has released the much acclaimed album Beyond Now, which documents “David Bowie’s Last Band” and features an exceptional group of musicians.

“Replacing Michael Brecker in Steps Ahead back in the 90s, and making an especially telling contribution to the orchestral sweep of Maria Schneider’s Orchestra, McCaslin has led a string of small bands of distinction. The most recent, with keyboardist Jason Lindner, bassist Tim Lefebvre and drummer Mark Guiliana had already become one of the signature bands of the day, playing a free-wheeling, grooving form of electric jazz, before being heard by Bowie in a tiny New York bar and thence providing the instrumental muscle behind his final recording, with the singer plugging into the band’s ‘intensely responsive metabolism’” – (New York Times)