The Drummer Behind David Bowie's Blackstar on Jazz, Electronic Music, Brad Mehldau, and Expanding the Boundaries of What Rhythm Can Be
Mark Guiliana is one of the most genuinely innovative drummers working today -- a musician who has spent his career dissolving the walls between jazz, electronic music, and the most forward-thinking corners of contemporary composition. He played on David Bowie's final album, Blackstar, one of the most acclaimed and discussed records of the last decade. He has been a long-time collaborator of pianist Brad Mehldau, one of the defining voices in modern jazz. And through his own projects, he has built a rhythmic language that sounds like nothing else in the current landscape.
In this conversation with Elmo, Mark goes deep on all of it -- the Bowie experience, the partnership with Mehldau, the way he has synthesized jazz and electronic music into something entirely his own, his philosophy of rhythm and composition, and what he believes it takes to develop a truly original voice on the instrument. This is a conversation for anyone who wants to understand what it looks like when a musician takes genuine creative risks and builds something new from the inside out.
"I'm not trying to play between genres. I'm trying to find the place where all of it is just music -- and the categories stop meaning anything."
The full story of his involvement in one of the most celebrated albums of the decade -- how he came to be part of the project, what the sessions were like, how Bowie approached the music and what he was clearly reaching for, and what it meant to be part of a record that turned out to be a final artistic statement from one of the most important artists of the 20th century. What he took from that experience and what it confirmed for him about music and risk.
His long-running creative relationship with one of the most celebrated pianists in jazz -- how they work together, what makes their musical dialogue so productive, and what he has learned about creative collaboration from years of playing with someone whose musical intellect operates at that level. The specific things that working with Mehldau has taught him about listening, space, and the relationship between rhythmic and harmonic thinking.
How he synthesized a jazz foundation with the rhythmic possibilities of electronic music to create a language that belongs to neither world entirely -- the specific influences, the technical process, and the philosophical approach that led him to the sound he has developed. Why he believes the boundary between acoustic and electronic music is one of the most interesting creative spaces available to musicians right now.
His direct account of what it takes to develop a genuinely original voice on the instrument -- the specific work, the willingness to be uncomfortable, the years of pursuing ideas that didn't fully resolve, and the point at which he felt he was finally playing something that was unmistakably his. His philosophy of practice and the specific things he did that he believes were most essential to finding his own sound.
How Mark thinks about rhythm -- not as timekeeping but as melody, harmony, and architecture. His specific ideas about what rhythm can be when it is freed from purely functional roles, the composers and musicians who showed him new ways of thinking about pulse and pattern, and the specific rhythmic concepts he has spent years developing and exploring in his own work and with his collaborators.
His perspective on what creative risk actually means for a working musician -- not recklessness but a disciplined commitment to pursuing ideas that might not work. Why he believes that the musicians who develop lasting relevance are always the ones who are willing to be genuinely uncomfortable in the creative process, and what that willingness requires of you personally and professionally over the course of a career.
The Blackstar conversation: Mark's first-hand account of the sessions -- what Bowie was like in the studio, how the music was made, and what it felt like to be part of something that turned out to carry the weight that record carries. Specific, personal, and revealing about what it actually looks like when a great artist is fully engaged in their final creative act.
On the Mehldau collaboration: the inner workings of one of the most respected creative partnerships in contemporary jazz -- how they communicate, what each brings that the other can't, and what Mark has learned about listening from years of playing alongside a pianist of that caliber. One of the more musically insightful passages in Go With Elmo's early episodes.
The electronic music integration: a specific and technical account of how Mark absorbed the rhythmic language of electronic music and brought it into his jazz playing -- not as pastiche but as a genuine synthesis. His explanation of this process is one of the clearest accounts of creative cross-pollination you'll hear from any musician working today.
On finding an original voice: direct, honest, and more practically useful than most discussions of artistic originality -- Mark's account of what the process actually required of him, how long it took, and what finally shifted. The kind of answer that working musicians need to hear about what developing a real identity on your instrument demands.
His rhythm philosophy unpacked: Mark explaining his specific ideas about what rhythm can be and do -- delivered in terms that are technically precise without being exclusionary. One of the most genuinely mind-expanding musical conversations Go With Elmo has produced in its first season.