This is the powerful left-field New York jazz band that played on David Bowie’s Blackstar, fronted by saxophonist Donny McCaslin, who’s due at the London jazz festival on 15 Nov. Though McCaslin is a sought-after improvising jazz saxist with a rugged post-Coltrane sound, his dedication to Bowie represents that niche of rock and hip-hop-influenced jazz that is rooted in the accumulation of repeated hooks against rhythm-section crescendos of rising heat. McCaslin’s plaintively curt motifs and split notes pitched against buffeting synth-chords and Mark Guiliana’s polyrhythmic drumming sets the agenda on Shake Loose. Bowie’s A Small Plot of Land is sung by New York experimenter Jeff Taylor with something of the composer’s ferocious grace. McCaslin’s fine ballad Glory has a compelling song-hook soulfulness. And Bowie and Brian Eno’s desolate Warszawa well suits McCaslin’s quavering, Coltrane-lament sound with Giuliana in Elvin Jones mode. Such repetition-based and anthemic music can pall for some jazzers, but it’s nonetheless a formidable set with a darkly seductive power.
