Donny McCaslin dedicated an untitled new song at the Village Vanguard on Sunday night to someone he said had been a great influence in his life, “someone who recently passed away.” The song, which began in a hush, sounded faintly familiar: The brooding dignity of its melody, carried by Mr. McCaslin on tenor saxophone against a spooky stir of keyboards, bass and drums, evoked the mood of David Bowie’s last album, “Blackstar.”

The picture soon widened as Mr. McCaslin and his crew turned the piece into a rugged expedition, its heavy momentum tripped up only by the occasional molasses glob of dub rhythm. By the end of the tune, the band had ratcheted up to a heroic exertion, prompting a full-throated cheer from the capacity crowd.

“Blackstar,” stylized as ★, has been endlessly parsed and pored-over since its release on ISO/Columbia this month, two days before the shock of Mr. Bowie’s death. The album, which opened at No. 1 on the Billboard chart, features Mr. McCaslin’s lithe, combustible quartet, with Jason Lindner on keyboards, Tim Lefebvre on electric bass and Mark Guiliana on drums — a rare instance of a pop album that not only enlists jazz musicians but also locks into their wavelength.

Mr. McCaslin has been an agreeable spark plug in New York jazz circles for the past two decades, with his own groups or in the employ of composer-bandleaders like Dave Douglas, with whom he played the Vanguard a handful of times, and Maria Schneider, who was in the audience on Sunday. It was the final night of Mr. McCaslin’s first week as a leader in the club, and his band combined exultant energy with an underlay of poignant tribute.

The group has a bedrock relationship with groove, but also a genius for permutation: Mr. Guiliana chops up the beat in deft, destabilizing ways, and Mr. Lindner, favoring a Wurlitzer electric piano with pedal effects, brings welcome grit and woozy atmosphere. Because Mr. Lefebvre has been on tour with another band and was further delayed by the snowstorm, Nate Wood of Kneebody filled in on bass. (He did an impressive job, especially given that he’s best known as a drummer; I saw him sub for Mr. Guiliana with this band last spring.)

Mr. McCaslin seems to have direct access to emotional expression in his playing, as if it were a valve he could open at will. He’s exceptionally sure-footed with his phrasing, almost never caught off balance, but he knows how to convey risk or fury through the compressed force of his tone.

He opened the set with the new tune “So Angry,” with a hard samba churn, and closed it with “Fast Future,” the title track of his 2015 album on Greenleaf Music. In each case Mr. McCaslin’s playing embodied a bracing escalation, bursting with urgency but never raging out of control. His solo on another tune, a rattling drum-and-bass loop in 7/8 time, reached such a fever pitch that afterward, Mr. Lindner fell silent for a moment. “I don’t know how to follow that,” he finally said, helplessly looking over at Mr. McCaslin. They both doubled over, laughing.

At one point in the set, Mr. McCaslin spoke directly about Mr. Bowie and “Blackstar,” appearing to choke up as he did. What followed was the band’s version of “Warszawa,” an elegiac, mostly instrumental track from Mr. Bowie’s 1977 album “Low.” Beginning with a synthesizer throb in free tempo, it gathered a rolling fervor with a tenor solo that felt both tempestuous and prayerful. (The New York Times)