Fellow musicians ‘never thought he was ill’

MUSICIANS who worked with David Bowie in his final months say they were dumbfounded that such an energetic performer could have been dying.

The British star’s family said he had fought an 18-month battle against liver cancer – but only a year ago he was working every day to recording his new album.

Bowie recruited a jazz group, the Donny McCaslin Quartet, after seeing them in a New York club. They worked on Blackstar, an album about human mortality which was released just two days before his death.

Bowie told virtually nobody about his illness and the jazz musicians were among those kept in the dark. Donny McCaslin, a saxophonist, said Bowie would meet the musicians to record from 11am to 4pm every day for about a week a month from January to March.

They did not know that after recording, Bowie would go off to work on another project, a musical he was co-writing called Lazarus.

‘I don’t know where he found the strength. It’s amazing,’ said Tim Lefebvre, who played bass on the album. ‘It never looked to us like he was sick.’ Performers in Lazarus were similarly ignorant. ‘He was a very private person – it wasn’t something he announced to any of us,’ said Michael Hall, one of the musical’s stars.

He said he was in a ‘state of awe’ at the amount of work Bowie completed within weeks of his death.

Bowie even managed to attend the musical’s premiere in New York in December although its director, who knew Bowie’s secret, said he collapsed from exhaustion after coming off stage for the curtain call.

Ivo van Hove said he could ‘see the tears behind his eyes’ with Bowie ‘really in deep fear’ as he struggled to live on.