donny mccaslin group at the charlie parker jazz festival - NYC, aug 28

• photography by Clara Pereira / text by Filipe Freitas

On the third and last day of Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, the blazing tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin, a 3-time Grammy nominated, brought his Fast Future quartet to perform, spiking our curiosity about his upcoming album, “Beyond Now”, to be released in October.
For this concert, McCaslin had to replace the band’s regular bassist Tim Lefebre for Nate Wood, a polyvalent instrumentalist who habitually plays the drums.
The other two elements are the pianist/keyboardist Jason Lindner, who had played on the first day of the festival in Harlem with his group Breeding Ground, and the booming drummer Mark Guiliana, who feels like a fish in water within this groovy electronic context.

With the bass and drums tightly connected, and Lindner’s mash-up of electronic noises and melodic textures, McCaslin found the right vehicle for his eloquent sound, deeply warm timbre, and wide range movements full of lancinating rhythmic motifs, punctilious details, and sinuous improvisational paths. 
Toggling between dreamlike melodiousness and boisterous incursions into a discerning electro-jazz-rock packed with variable breakbeats, the concert had its highest peak with a cover of David Bowie's “Look Back in Anger”.