Watching John Mailander’s Forecast live is a bit like trying to watch gravity. You know there’s a force holding it all together, even if you can’t see it, even when the jazz- and bluegrass-inspired collective teeters on the edge of spinning out of orbit. Those spacey improvisations took center stage during the band’s album release stream Thursday. Mailander and his group returned to their frequent hangout The 5 Spot for their first live show since the pandemic began, to celebrate the release of Look Closer, a six-track EP that marks Mailander’s third solo record.
In an interview with the Scene during the run up to the release, Mailander said he feels most grounded in the bluegrass tradition, constituting the building blocks of his storied professional career as a fiddle player. He’s toured and done studio sessions with Nashville icons like Molly Tuttle, and he played on Billy Strings’ Grammy-winning album Home. But the Forecast is a different animal altogether, and showcases Mailander’s desire to fold in other genres. The collective played the album top to bottom on The 5 Spot’s stage, where they had workshopped some of the tunes during a monthly residency gig cut short by the pandemic. As Mailander had promised during our interview, the band let the songs take their own shape during the stream instead of playing them note for note.
Mailander kicked things off by using a loop pedal to create airy fiddle riffs on the opening of “Returning,” the first track on the EP. While multiple cameras tracked their movements and made for a dynamic stream, it seemed like everyone onstage got lost in their own little world, taking solos that extrapolated the song’s theme. “Borderline” and “Dust,” the two cover songs from the EP (featuring vocalists Kristina Train and Maya de Vitry respectively) were a little more zipped-up and structured but no less fun.
Mailander alternated between fiddle and keys, joined by Ethan Jodziewicz on bass, Chris Lippincott on pedal steel and keys, Mark Raudabaugh on drums and David Williford on sax, with a guest appearance from Gibb Droll, Mailander’s fellow sideman in Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers, on guitar. The gig felt like the opposite of every co-worker’s brother’s jam you’ve been invited to — this was the kind of jam session where folks grin ear to ear and good musicians let loose on songs they know inside and out, until there’s a silent communication about breakdowns and interludes. This sort of familiarity offered space for Mailander’s pizzicato and bowing techniques to spin out into noise or get treated with distortion effects, as he did on the live rendition of Look Closer standout “But It Did Happen.” It means the sudden swerve into a rock mode, courtesy of Raudabaugh’s drum solo during that tune, still makes sense on a largely acoustic album. With just a bit of eye contact and gesturing, the band swung back into orbit and moved seamlessly through the set.
Being someone who deeply misses the weekly swing dancing at The 5 Spot that used to precede the Motown Monday dance party, I was delighted to see live music back on that stage. And it felt especially good to watch a talented collective bring to life an album that already encapsulated so many pandemic feelings.
