British rock legend David Bowie called on saxophonist Donny McCaslin and his band to record Bowie’s album, “Blackstar,” after checking out the jazz group’s performance at the 55 Bar in Greenwich Village.
Bowie received chemotherapy during the sessions but kept his cancer diagnosis a secret among his collaborators. Band members agreed not to divulge Bowie’s health status or publicly acknowledge the recording sessions were in progress.
The resulting album sounds haunted by death. Two days after its surprise release to instant acclaim in January 2016, Bowie died.
A few years later, McCaslin teamed with the “Blackstar” band and other Bowie veterans to create “Blackstar Symphony,” an orchestral adaptation of the album. Jules Buckley, Tim Davies, Vince Mendoza, Maria Schneider, Jamshied Sharifi, Tony Visconti, Michael Dudley Jr. and Vellu Halkosalmi wrote orchestral arrangements for the “Blackstar” songs and a selection of Bowie’s greatest hits.
McCaslin and collaborators will give “Blackstar Symphony” its Midwest premiere Friday at the Stifel Theatre with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
He and the orchestra will be joined by bassist Tim Lefebvre and keyboardist Jason Lindner from the original recordings, plus drummer Nate Wood and vocalists Gail Ann Dorsey and David Poe. Tim Davies will conduct.
St. Louis Public Radio Arts and Culture senior reporter Jeremy Goodwin asked McCaslin about helping to create Bowie’s final album.
Jeremy D. Goodwin: You'd worked with David on one song a year or two before recording this record. When he came to see you and your band play at the little 55 Bar in Greenwich Village, did you know he was scouting you to perform on his next album?
Donny McCaslin: Well yes, I did. He came down with Maria Schneider, who is a great composer, who I've worked with for years, and she was really the one who suggested to David that he do something with me and my band. So I knew they were coming down. And it was one of those situations where I just tried to forget about it and not look in the audience too much and just focus on the music at hand. Because I knew there was a lot on the line with them coming to hear us live.
Goodwin: Did you tell the band?
McCaslin: I only told Mark Guiliana because he was involved in the recording we were doing with Maria's band, the collaboration that she did with David. But I didn't tell Tim or Jason, and afterwards, they were grateful that I didn't tell them.
Goodwin: When you got the gig, did he articulate to you what he was hearing in your band that he wanted on his album?
McCaslin: He gave me brush strokes for which I was really grateful, because with those brush strokes, it just gave so much room for my creative imagination to go. He sent songs as home demos. And these demos had all the elements of the songs, but there was a lot of room inside them for orchestration. So I felt like I could just go for it in terms of orchestrating things for the woodwinds that I play.
And when we got to the recording studio the first day, one of the things he said to me was: “I want you to just feel free to go for whatever you're hearing. Don't worry about this being classified as jazz or rock or whatever. Don't worry about the genre. Just feel free to go with what you're feeling.” And he turned to Mark and said, “Any polyrhythmic thing you want to play on the drums, feel absolutely free.”
That was such an empowering thing for him to do on the first day, to give us the green light to be as creative as we wanted to be. And he really set the tone for how the sessions went. You couldn't ask for a more creative environment to be working in.
Goodwin: There are moments on the album that are very aware of mortality, particularly “Lazarus,” for which he recorded a video that was largely him in bed with buttons over his eyes. Did you know David was sick?
McClasin: Yeah, we talked about it the first day. When he was in the studio, he was just utterly focused and engaged and had so much focus. It was amazing. You never had the sense that he was ill.
Goodwin: What sticks out in your mind from the recording process?
McClaslin: One thing is when we recorded “Lazarus.” I remember I was in the saxophone booth looking straight ahead, and there was David's profile, because he was singing right outside my saxophone booth. And I just remember imagining my saxophone as a pillow around his voice.
It was such a magical moment to feel that way and to have it play out that way. And I felt free enough just to ride that feeling and to be able to just feel like I was inside his voice and just trying to add beauty and comfort around it. That was like a magical moment where everything really felt like it connected for me.
Goodwin: It's impossible for me to hear this album outside of his context. When you come across a reference to David Bowie’s “Blackstar,” what's the first thing you feel?
McClaslin: It's been different feelings at different periods since all this happened. [Sometimes] I would feel a well of emotion come up. And I remember walking into the sushi restaurant in my neighborhood with my kids and my wife, and “Lazarus” was on the radio. And it just felt really loaded, emotionally — primarily because of David's passing.
I guess at times, also marveling at how beautiful the record is, and feeling so happy to have been a part of something like that, that felt like it was really high art, and all of all these different elements combined into this just beautiful, beautiful record. It was such an affirming experience. So that's part of it too. But I think for a lot of time, it just felt heavy emotionally.
Goodwin: I know you’ve gotten offers to play the album as a complete piece live in the past and turn them down. Why is “Blackstar Symphony” now the right way to bring this material to the stage?
McClaslin: I was sitting at dinner with Jules Buckley and the idea just came up — what about doing “Blackstar” with an orchestra? And suddenly that made sense. And I thought this would be something that David would be into, if we do this right. If we don’t necessarily do everything note by note from the record, but more like we take the DNA from the record, reimagine it for orchestra, band and three singers, and create a new piece of art. That would be something that I think he would really be interested in: moving the art forward, moving “Blackstar” forward.
Goodwin: Is there something on this program that you just really wish David had a chance to hear?
McClaslin: The whole thing. That's kind of the litmus test for us with this project. Would this be something that David would have wanted to hear? Would he have enjoyed this? Would he have been proud of this? It's something I've talked about with Gail Ann Dorsey. She is a featured singer in this project, and she worked in his band for many years.
WIth all the musical decisions in this project, that's the question that I ask.
So far, the answer has been yes. And we want to keep it that way.
