John Malander's Forecast

newgrass · bluegrass · jam band

John Mailander's Forecast, billed on some listings as John Malander's Forecast, is a Nashville improvisational roots group led by fiddler and multi-instrumentalist John Mailander. A Berklee College of Music graduate, Mailander plays fiddle, keyboards and electronics in the band and is also a member of Bruce Hornsby & the Noisemakers. The group was first assembled for the live debut of his 2019 album Forecast and has since worked as a rotating collective around a core of Ethan Jodziewicz on bass, Chris Lippincott on steel guitars and keys, Jake Stargel on guitar, Mark Raudabaugh on drums, Dean Miller on tenor saxophone and Kristina Train on vocals, with Maya De Vitry, Ben Garnett, David Williford, Royal Masat, Geoff Saunders and others rotating through; shows are often paired with the Dig Deep Light Show. Look Closer, released in May 2021 on Mailander's Hoping Machine Music, is a six-track instrumental record cut live in one room at Soundwave Studios in Nashville over four days in July 2020, the players masked and distanced. Let the World In followed in January 2025, recorded across four days at The Studio Nashville in February 2024, produced by Mailander and mixed by Daniel Rice, with Lindsay Lou, Maya De Vitry, Gibb Droll and others credited as the Let The World In Sound Freedom Expressionists; unlike its predecessor it brings vocals into the string-and-saxophone frame. A live set, Live Forecast: Vol. 1, is also in circulation. Away from the band Mailander is a heavily credited session and touring player, appearing on Billy Strings' Grammy-winning Home and on records by Molly Tuttle, Noah Kahan, Joy Williams, Lucy Dacus and Lin-Manuel Miranda, touring with Billy Strings, Lindsay Lou, Peter Rowan, Keller Williams and Sierra Hull, and playing fiddle for the New York premiere of Steve Martin and Edie Brickell's musical Bright Star. He also wrote the instructional book A Fiddler's Guide to Moveable Shapes and teaches at camps including the Swannanoa Gathering.

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