MJ + Allweather 2024. Photo by Lance Tessmann.

Allweather is the long-running modern jazz project of bassist and composer Max Johnk. Featuring a richly orchestrated horn frontline and a shapeshifting rhythm section, Allweather exclusively perform Max’s original music- a stack of grooving, unpredictable jazz tunes that are rooted in the classic Blue Note and ECM sounds, but often gesture at the composer’s love of r&b, indie rock, and symphonic music. This eclecticism is united by a strong penchant for melody, where a half-sung phrase turns out to be a ritual chant, or a folky earworm modulates into something stranger, right after it gets stuck in your head. Whether gently lyrical or stubbornly off-kilter, each song is raw material for raw performances- Allweather uses instrumental music to elicit big feelings, and hopefully blow a few minds along the way.

Max Johnk + Allweather have recorded a new studio album that is slated for release in 2025. The recording features longtime friends and Fargo mainstays Race Hoglund (alto sax), Russ Peterson (tenor sax), Steve Wallevand (trombone), and Joel Beseler-Thompson (drums). To hear new music as it is released, please follow Max’s Bandcamp page.

Booking / Press Inquiries: maxjohnkmusic@gmail.com

LIVE (2025)

TINY DESK SUBMISSION (2023)

STUDIO ALBUM (2019)

“There’s all kinds of straight-ahead goodness on the sophomore release from Max Johnk.  The bassist and his quartet… find the right balance between melodic warmth and rhythmic heat, and gets it to where one feeds off the other in an unending cycle of lively energy. “

-David Sumner ( birdistheworm.com ) on Allweather, 2019

“PRAIRIE MUSICIANS” BROADCAST (2017)