Fearless: A Conversation with Donny McCaslin on David Bowie, Elvis Costello, and the Newport Jazz Festival

According to a 2015 Nielsen report, “jazz” makes up a paltry 1.3% of total music consumption in the United States. This dire statistic suggests that the art form’s reach is relegated to its small clique of loyal followers. Fortunately, the value of art lies not in its commercial properties. Far more relevant than dollar signs is how the spirit of improvisation-based music presents itself in other art. In this perspective, “jazz” is as vibrant as ever. Consider one of the most significant hip hop records of the last twenty-five years, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly (TDE/Aftermath/Interscope, 2015), where the swagger of the West Coast Get Down serves as its backbone. Another excellent example is Donny McCaslin’s distinctive hybridizations of jazz, rock, pop, and electronic music, which one can witness in his set with Elvis Costello at the 2024 Newport Jazz Festival.

McCaslin’s roots are unquestionably in jazz, with several fairly straight-ahead albums under his name. He is also a longtime member of NEA Jazz Master Maria Schneider’s Jazz Orchestra. But electrifying his sound a decade and a half ago has taken him to new realms outside the jazz mainstream. Plugging-in has resulted in several stellar albums,  including Casting for Gravity (Greenleaf, 2012) and his most recent outing, I Want More (Edition, 2023). It also rocketed the saxophonist to the bandleader role on Blackstar (ISO/Columbia/Sony, 2026), David Bowie’s farewell letter. At times unnerving and others tranquil, the cryptically edgy jazz-indebted soundscapes on Blackstar form, in hindsight, a modern masterpiece on human mortality. 

For anyone questioning Elvis Costello’s appearance at the legendary Newport Jazz Festival, their answer lies in the rock star’s band of jazz-rooted compatriots including McCaslin, Michael Leonhart, Raymond James Mason, and Endea Owens. The group’s addition to this summer’s lineup is a testament to the continually far-reaching power of a musical form that is now over a century old. 

PostGenre: When did you first learn about Newport? 

Donny McCaslin: I was fourteen years old and a freshman in high school. I went to Aptos High School in California. It was not my school district, but that is where I went. My parents were divorced, and we used my father’s address, which was in that area, for me to get access to the school. We did that because the school had a very strong high school jazz program. The director, Don Keller, is a trumpet player and was also close friends with Bill Berry, who played trumpet in Duke Ellington’s band. Bill had given Don a library of Ellington charts at a time – this was in the early ‘80s – when they were not readily available for distribution amongst colleges, much less high schools. It was, obviously, a special library of music to draw from. And Don was an incredible educator. 

Long story short, I got into the jazz band as a freshman, and the band got invited to go to Europe. There was a huge fundraising campaign for the trip, and my mother was one of the head people of it. The band went to Europe, and on the plane ride over, I got very sick. It turned out it was an appendicitis. So, at our first stop, in Holland, I was taken to the hospital and had my appendix removed. 

I spent a week in Holland recovering and, at the time, was reading a book about Duke Ellington. I also had a cassette player and a copy of [Ellington at Newport (Columbia, 1956)] with the famous version of “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue,” where Paul Gonsalves has an epic solo. I listened to that record for a week, almost nonstop, while l was reading the book. And, so, when you ask me my thoughts on the Newport Jazz Festival, that’s where I go right away. The Ellington performance was a seminal event, man. The vibe with the audience and interaction with them was a special moment in music history. It’s always been an inspiration to me. 

PG: Has your perspective of Newport changed as you have performed there, especially as a leader?

DM: No, I think it’s just always been something that I’ve greatly looked forward to. I hold the Festival in a hallowed space in my mind because of the Ellington experience. Every time I’ve played there, it’s felt very special and exciting. That is true whether I am there with my own band, which I’ve done a few times, or with the Maria Schneider Orchestra, which I have done multiple times. I have also performed there with [Ryan Truesdell’s Gil Evans [Centennial Project]. It’s always a very special thing for me to get to play there. 

I also love how there’s a sense of community at Newport. I enjoy seeing many of my peers while I’m there. I remember one time, I saw Joshua Redman’s band playing on the main stage. He was playing so beautifully, just standing up there and taking it all in. I said hello to him after and congratulated him. That sense of community is fabulous. 

You are also able to hear stellar music on the different stages. It has a special place in music history, and so many of my heroes have played there. I’m honored and excited to have the opportunity to take the stage there. 

PG: This year, you are playing at Newport with Elvis Costello. How did you get hooked up with him? 

DM: I think it was through Michael Leonhart. I play in Michael’s band, and at one point a few years ago, Elvis came and sat in with us on a gig. Michael and Elvis also wrote a song together for one of Michael’s records. I’m not quite sure how they met each other. But Michael called me one day and said, “Hey, Elvis wants us to do some gigs with him.” And that’s how it started. So, it all came through my relationship with Michael, but I know that Elvis was also aware of Blackstar. 

PG: Elvis has played at the Newport Folk Festival several times, but this is his first time at the Jazz Festival. He’s married to Diana Krall and is surrounding himself for this performance with yourself, Michael, and Endea Owens; people from a jazz background. But most people would not necessarily think of him as making “jazz” music. Where do you feel your set with him will fit within the general umbrella of “jazz”?

DM: Elvis is such a prodigious writer. And, as you probably know, throughout his career, he’s made so many different kinds of music. His musical scope is big. There’s a lot of diversity in his discography and his musical interests. There is one album by him that had Lee Konitz on a track [“Someone Took the Words Away” on North (Deutsche Grammophon, 2003)]. There are songs on that album with an American songbook vibe influence to them. I think the music’s going to fit in wonderfully at the Newport Jazz Festival because his taste in music and his output are eclectic. 

Elvis also has an improviser’s vibe on stage. He fully goes for it. He has that spirit of being in the moment and just rolling with it. He will bounce things off the horn section. There’s a real malleability to his artistic viewpoint, which I dig. To me, that is coming from an improviser’s viewpoint, and I greatly enjoy that about him. From the different concerts I’ve done with him, it’s clear he’s unafraid to take chances. 

PG: Since he is open to risks, how much freedom does he give you in terms of crafting your own part? 

DM: Of course, we have parts when we’re playing as a section. But there’s also room for improvising. How much space there is for improvisation varies from show to show, partly due to the set list and partly due to how Elvis is feeling at the moment. But there is space for improvising. 

PG: And in terms of the setlist, when you are playing with this group, is it mostly new songs or rearrangements of Elvis’ older tunes?

DM: Elvis doesn’t want his show to be like a greatest hits collection. He’s constantly rearranging the set order, adding and removing different songs. He goes through these different, musical journeys that represent what his career has been, which is not just pigeonholed into one thing.

And that also takes a real fearlessness on his part. I’m sure some people want to hear only the hits instead of something he wrote with Burt Bacharach or The Roots, as examples. Every night, he puts a lot of thought into his setlist. I find it so inspiring, especially at this point in his career, that he’s still searching for the right combination of elements. He’s still writing. He’s still doing new things. 

PG: You mentioned Blackstar a little earlier. Was your experience working with David Bowie similar to working with Elvis?

DM: Well, I think what’s most different was the overall setup. With David, everything we did was in the studio. We went track by track and layered things together. It was my band playing with him. There was this real sense of a common musical conversation between the four of us, five if you count Ben Monder. There was a lot of back and forth in the moment, and Bowie stepped into that and amplified it with his great energy, focus, and his fabulous songs. But the dynamics stayed the same, in a sense, between us playing off each other constantly. 

I think what’s different with Elvis is that I’m part of the horn section of his band – with Michael and Ray Mason-  instead of my own featuring him. And that is inherently a different general setup of how things go. We are also playing live instead of crafting a song in the studio, doing four takes, and then moving on to the next song. So it’s a different dynamic in that sense. 

But I do feel there is a similarity between the two experiences. As I mentioned earlier, Elvis is totally willing to go for it in the moment, and David was the same way.  I remember David saying to us the first day we were in the studio making Blackstar that he wanted me to feel free to go for whatever I was hearing and not worry about how it might be labeled or how somebody might categorize the music. Just go for whatever I was hearing. You can’t ask for a more conducive environment to creativity than that. It was a total green light to follow my intuition, which I greatly appreciated. I feel like in those moments with Elvis, when we’re improvising there’s that similar energy. He too just wants me to go for it and is egging me on. 

And in terms of Elvis’ setlist selections, I felt that same aesthetic with Bowie that I do with Elvis. When we worked with David, he was in his late 60s. He still wanted to do something very different and dared to do that. He easily could have just done fifteen different versions of “Life on Mars?” and certain people would be happy with that. But, of course, he would never do that. 

PG: In fact, when you were working with Bowie, you started listening to his older music to get inspiration for what ended up becoming Blackstar, and he told you not to.  

DM: Yeah, yeah. David said he was into something different when we were working together.  I took him at his word and stopped listening to his earlier stuff because he wanted to hear what we were bringing to his new music with our own musical language. He had no interest in redoing something that he had already done. 

PG: At a base level, both Costello and Bowie are/were vocalists. Your album, Blow. (Motéma, 2018), also emphasized vocalists. Do you feel that through your experiences working with Bowie and on Blow., you picked up anything to help with playing behind Elvis now?

DM: Oh, absolutely. It all feeds into the next thing. Blackstar was the blueprint for me to meld these worlds of improvising, songwriting, supporting vocals, and finding my own voice within that. That absolutely comes into play when working with Elvis. 

When I was in the studio with David, I remember playing the song “Lazarus” with him and looking at him singing as I played in my saxophone booth.  I closed my eyes, listened to him, and imagined my saxophone was a soft pillow around his voice. My part, whatever I was doing with the notes or the movements, was to be a supportive thing around what I felt was lead. That aesthetic is also something that I think about with Elvis, for sure. Especially on a softer song. We play a lot of softer songs with Elvis like “Someone took the Words Away.” I think about that vibe as well. 

Of course, coming up in the jazz tradition, as you can imagine, I did have significant prior experience playing with singers. I recorded a little with Luciana Souza, Kate McGarry, and others. So, it’s not like I had no experience playing with vocalists before David. But it’s obviously different in this sort of hybrid rock-jazz space I’ve been in with both David and Elvis, as well as on Blow.. 

PG: As far as Blackstar, you have also been working on a symphonic version of the work. How did that project come about? 

DM: After Blackstar came out and David passed away, there was some interest in having us perform the music from the record. But we never felt like that was something that we wanted to do for a variety of reasons.

Some years later, I was working on a project with the Metropole Orkest. We were working on a bunch of my music from Blow., actually. Ryan Dahle, who is also on Blow., came and sang with us. Jason [Lindner] played with us too. We did two Bowie songs that I love deeply- “Warszawa” and “Look Back in Anger.” One day, I was at lunch or dinner with the artistic director, Jules Buckley, and we started talking about the idea of doing Blackstar with an orchestra. It felt like a way to approach music that would be artistically rewarding. We wouldn’t just be playing the record note for note, but the album would still be in the project’s DNA. We could still take chances and expand on the record. Essentially, make a new piece of art with the DNA of Blackstar. That seemed like something very interesting to do and something that I think David would have dug. My manager, Steven Saporta, loved the idea. He reached out to an investor, Steven Hendel, who did Finding Fela and many other things on Broadway. They started a production company, and that’s how they came to life. And we just played two nights at the Kennedy Center in DC with the National Symphony Orchestra about two weeks ago, which was great. 

PG: In terms of how you got hooked up with Bowie, that connection came through Maria Schneider. Earlier, you mentioned how you have been a part of her band. Given how great a composer she is, do you think you have learned anything about composition from working with her since you write excellent pieces too? 

DM: Well, thank you. Yeah, I’ve learned so much from her. Part of it is her utter dedication and commitment to refining her songs until they are exactly what she intended. I have a lot of respect for her work ethic, her deep ears, and her commitment to realizing what she’s hearing without compromise. Her writing is unique and occupies its own place in the jazz world. And much of that is due to her commitment to her own voice. She fully commits to what she truly hears, and I’ve learned so much in the twenty-something years I’ve been in her band. She’s an amazing musician. 

PG: And part of how Maria got David into your music was by giving him a copy of your album, Casting for Gravity (Greenleaf, 2012). But you started exploring the idea of hybridizing rock, electronic music, and jazz two years earlier on Perpetual Motion (Greenleaf, 2010). What got you interested in combining those ideas into your music? 

DM: Well, David Binney – great alto sax player, composer, and producer – and I are very good friends. He produced several of my records. As we were putting together Perpetual Motion, we started discussing what direction we wanted to go. David told me that I should think about doing an electric record. And, long story short, that is what led to Perpetual Motion. I enjoyed doing that project so much that I continued in that direction for Casting for Gravity and onward. Starting to work with electronic music on Perpetual Motion was a real turning point. But the short answer is that it was David Binney who got me on that path. 

PG: In terms of adding those elements of electronica and rock to jazz, your father, Don McCaslin, was a vibraphonist who loved standards and Latin jazz. Did you get any resistance from him when you started going in the electric direction? 

DM: No, no, I didn’t. And actually, since you mentioned that, I remember that my dad said that my music reminded him of Dixieland music. I can’t remember whether that was in the context of hearing us play live or listening to one of my records, but that was what he said. I was very surprised by that. I think what he meant is that because there’s so much improvising going on all the time, that it is like Dixieland. 

Especially with [bassist] Tim [Lefebvre], who has been on all those records starting with Perpetual Motion. Tim has been such an anchor, and we’re now deep into songwriting together. Tim is an incredibly interactive player and is so willing to take chances. He doesn’t play the same part over and over. He’s truly an experimental player and incredible. And I think that’s what my dad was hearing, my relationship with Tim’s bass and how we sort of play off each other.

Of course, then you also have Jason, who is a sonic and musical genius. And the same thing also applies to drums, whether it’s Mark Guiliana, Nate Wood, or Zach Danzinger. All those guys have that similar aesthetic where they understand the language of electronica, drum and bass, and rock, and can improvise, as well. They all understand the common language we’re drawing from with this hybrid and are all able to express themselves through it and interact with each other. 

PG: Tying to that importance of improvisation, one of your most significant musical influences has been John Coltrane. You play the same instrument – tenor sax – but your music sounds very different from his. For one thing, he was all acoustic. How do you feel his influence can be heard in your music? 

DM: Oh, wow. One of the many things I hear in his music is just his utter devotion and the outpouring and emotionally, of his expression and the intensity with which he played. I have always found that so galvanizing and inspiring. I try to bring that same sense of purpose, intensity, and focus every time I play the instrument. So, while our music is very different, the ideals that he set forth – that I picked up on as a teenager – are things that I have tried to show in my music. Honesty, being courageous, and laying it all out there. Those are what I love about his music and also what I try to achieve in mine. 

Catch Donny McCaslin with Elvis Costello at the Newport Jazz Festival on Saturday, August 3, 2024. More information on the Festival can be found here. We will be providing live coverage of the event. You can read more about Donny McCaslin  on his website.