Donny McCaslin Looks Forward with ‘Fast Future’

Aptly described by a friend as “freakazoid jazz,” this adventurous escape into the jazzy cosmos is certainly not your average jazz outing. Exploding with punchy synths and post-rock guitars, it is one wild ride of an album, though more related to Yoko Kanno’s space-age sleek than Sun Ra’s cosmic freeform. Granted, some of the saxophone flourishes sound straight out of the cheesy realms of Wings, and some of the moments are jarring or just not great; but some are beautiful. This is unabashed genre-melding done very well, as McCaslin is truly pushing things forward in interesting ways. Strap on your seat belts — we have liftoff.