Donny McCaslin – A Portrait

By Tom R. Schulz, June 2025

The »Elbphilharmonie Jazz Academy« is a biennial educational event unlike any other. Nowhere else does a concert hall bring together around 15 of the best young jazz musicians from all over the world to spend an intensive week honing their technique, deepening their expression and exploring new artistic ideas. The experience culminates in a performance in front of an audience of more than 4,000 people. Throughout the week, the participants are guided by artistic mentors – musicians who are not only gifted educators, but also accomplished performers in their own right. Past mentors have included Yaron Herman, Anat Cohen, Theo Croker, Sullivan Fortner, Melissa Aldana, Ziv Ravitz, Julia Hülsmann and Clarice Assad.

The third edition of this top-class training week in late summer 2025 will be led by New York saxophonist Donny McCaslin, who previously brought his expertise to the »Elbphilharmonie Jazz Academy« as a mentor in 2023. For this new edition, he has handpicked a team of exceptional musicians to join him in inspiring the next generation of international jazz talent. The line-up reads like a dream ensemble: Gerald Clayton and Django Bates (piano/keyboards), Jorge Roeder and Allison Miller (bass and drums), Jen Shyu (vocals) and McCaslin himself on tenor saxophone – a group you would want to hear live on any stage.

Discover the next generation of jazz: browse photos, short bios and background information on the international talents selected for this year’s »Elbphilharmonie Jazz Academy«.

»Donny is great,« says an Elbphilharmonie staff member who worked closely with him during the 2023 Jazz Academy. »He was totally committed to the academy students and spent an incredible amount of time with them.« McCaslin is one of those rare artists whose developing mastery only brings him closer to the next generation of up-and-coming talent. There is no arrogance, no condescension. And yet, his playing has such technical and conceptual mastery that it ranks him alongside the true greats – Michael Brecker, Joe Henderson, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane.

In fast-paced numbers, he brings a self-assured yet always passionate flamboyance to the fore. In slow ballads, he imbues them with the weight of the world. His sound is fully formed. In his pieces, single notes often push their way into the space like three-dimensional bursts of energy, commanding our full attention. Before flowing seamlessly into a steady continuum of bold lines, brilliant flashes and cascading runs. Listening to Donny McCaslin is like being swept along into a vivid stream of consciousness, powered by mercurial musical intelligence.

The phenomenal control he maintains over his music at every tempo is something that even he can only accomplish through tireless training. That same Elbphilharmonie staff member recalls, almost in awe, how McCaslin would quietly step away from the group during breaks in 2023 and go into an adjoining room without a moment’s pause – just to practice.

For more than a decade, Donny McCaslin’s creative output has thrived within the close-knit setting of his long-standing quartet – the same powerhouse ensemble that recorded David Bowie’s final album »Blackstar« in 2015. With Jason Lindner on keyboards, Tim Lefebvre on bass and Mark Guiliana on drums, McCaslin has brought together a group of kindred spirits – hyper-virtuosic musicians who operate as a jazz supergroup.

Together, they tap into a vast reservoir of musical ideas, playful experimentation and sometimes wonderfully obscure sounds. Their approach is as focused and finely tuned as that of elite athletes – combining precision with a relaxed nonchalance. The music’s high-energy density challenges not only the performers but also the mirror neurons of the audience. McCaslin’s compositions are sophisticated vessels of ideas. He tears through them with urgency and fervour, always without letting you know what to expect around the next corner.

Donny McCaslin pairs his outstanding musical authority with an immense warmth. Even in the smallest gestures, his genuine nature shines through – like his remarkable knack for remembering names and faces. Years may pass, yet he’ll greet you by name as if no time has gone by. With his seemingly carefree boyish face, his beaming smile and his signature backwards cap, he looks like a born winner. His often jubilant, ecstatic solos speak for themselves.

But beneath the brightness, demons also find their way into his music – especially in more recent works, where reverb and echo effects amplify a darker emotional palette. One of his songs is programmatically titled »Stadium Jazz«. And like the big American rock bands that fill stadiums, McCaslin often allows unfiltered waves of rage, sorrow and despair to break through the intellectual architecture of his works. In conversation, he will sometimes allude to early traumas, unprompted, and you sense that perhaps these unresolved wounds may be what echo so powerfully in some of his choruses.

Donny McCaslin grew up on the stage. Before he could even walk, his father Don McCaslin – who played the vibraphone and piano – would sit him on a chair beside him while performing with his band Warmth on the porch of the Cooper House in Santa Cruz every Sunday. It must have been quite a hippie crowd, very California style. »Sometimes I’d see a cigarette butt floating in a puddle of spit in the horn of a saxophone,« McCaslin recalls. The sight didn’t stop him from taking up the saxophone himself at the age of twelve. From an early age he was allowed to play in his father’s band. »When I’d get frustrated and hang my head after making mistakes, he’d always tell me I was his favourite saxophonist.«

The warm humanity of his father, who sometimes played 13 gigs a week in Santa Cruz, lives on in his son. Yet when it comes to teaching jazz, Donny McCaslin is not a man for artistic mass participation. When selecting participants for the 2025 »Elbphilharmonie Jazz Academy«, he consistently gravitated toward applicants who not only played brilliantly but had something personal to say with their music. It’s a principle passed down from his mentor, the legendary vibraphonist Gary Burton, whose band McCaslin joined in his final year at Berklee. Burton’s credo was clear: »Only when you start playing your own music will you find your own musical voice.« Or, in McCaslin’s words: Write! Your! Music! It’s a call to action for young musicians determined to stand at least a small chance of succeeding, one day, in an enormously competitive world of excellent instrumentalists and singers.

He has an undeniable passion for nurturing young, aspiring musicians – perhaps because he sees his younger self in them. At just 14, he embarked on his first European tour with the big band from Aptos High School. Unfortunately, the trip took an unexpected turn: shortly after arriving in Europe, he was hospitalised in the Netherlands with appendicitis and had to miss most of the tour. Four years later, more seasoned as a musician, he returned to Europe with the school band for a second tour – this time already on his way to Berklee.

What particularly appeals to him about the concept of the »Elbphilharmonie Jazz Academy« is that it culminates in a full-length concert programme in the Grand Hall. In the lead-up, around 15 exceptionally talented and motivated young musicians aged 18 to 30, who have never met before, come together to form several ensembles under the guidance of six leading jazz artists. They’ll spend a few intensive days preparing a programme made up entirely of their own compositions. It’s a high-pressure setting, but one with immense rewards. »I would have loved an opportunity like this back in the day,« McCaslin reflects. Ideally, the whole thing will be, to quote a Miles Davis album title, Big Fun.

Donny McCaslin is certain, no, wholeheartedly determined that this academy week will be an unforgettable experience for everyone involved.

This article appeared in the Elbphilharmonie Magazine (issue 2/25).