John Mailander’s Forecast

The fiddler John Mailander stumbled into bluegrass, leading a band, and then being one of the most exciting new voices in the broader jam band world. Growing up in San Diego, Mailander gravitated toward roots music through its sense of community, the way a set of strangers could share the same songbook. His enthusiasm took him first to Berklee and then to Nashville, where he soon became a session ace joining the likes of Molly Tuttle and Peter Rowan and enlisting for extended duty in Bruce Hornsby’s band, The Noisemakers. In late 2018, as he was preparing to release his solo debut, Forecast, he assembled a band of fellow ringers with pedigrees in bluegrass and country but interests in more outbound stuff, too. That show for that album soon turned into the band Forecast, a sprawling collective that can surpass a dozen members.

Forecast is an anomaly in the worlds of jam or bluegrass. On the surface, they are a gentle big band, with tender and open-hearted instrumentals like “Let the World In” or “Heartland” suggesting a Windham Hill-meets-ECM variation on cosmic country. But they are also savage improvisers, enthused by one-minute descents into absolute bedlam or quixotic rhythmic games. They’ve also started to have something of an anthem, in a cover of Nick Drake’s “The Road,” a song about making your way through your own understanding of reality. It offers an ascent into outer space when the band digs beneath it live. Due to its size and the stature of its players, shows by John Mailander Forecast are much more seldom than their onstage energy might suggest; they make a stop at Big Ears 2026.