Jazz Articles about Max Johnson

About Max Johnson

Radio & Podcasts

Described as “an intrepid composer, architect of sound and beast of the bass..." composer, bassist, and improviser Max Johnson is one of the most prolific music makers in the jazz, bluegrass, improvised music, and contemporary classical worlds. Max has released 20 albums, and performed over three thousand concerts internationally with artists like Anthony Braxton, Geri Allen and Mary Halvorson. This performance features Neta Raanan on tenor saxophone, and Eliza Salem on drums performing selections from their 2024 album ...

Album Review

Sam Newsome: Tubes

by Mike Jurkovic
February 25, 2024

Tubes, a riotous investigation into the sonic by outlaw soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome and provocateur bassist Max Johnson, burps to life with “Dust" and proceeds assuredly down its own peculiar byways and highways. It is a real treat. The track closes with Newsome's prepared horn pondering like a bluesman on his lone, lonely harp. It is a real neat treat too. That is pretty much the blueprint for Tubes. However, it is not as simple as that and ...

Album Review

Max Johnson Trio: Orbit of Sound

Read "Orbit of Sound" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
January 11, 2023

Whereas Sketches (Fresh Sounds Records, 2022) could be considered a more traditional big bop trio recording with pianist/vibraphonist Karl Berger and drummer Billy MIntz, Orbit of Sound, NY bassist Max Johnson's second heady release of 2022 finds him in the instigative company of the ever undefinable Anna Webber on tenor saxophone and flute and drummer Michael Sarin. On the verge of completing a tour of Europe in the fateful February and March of 2019, the trio's final concert ...

Album Review

Karl Berger, Max Johnson, Billy Mintz: Sketches

Read "Sketches" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
December 31, 2022

An exquisitely palatable sense of dance permeates the gregarious music bassist Max Johnson brings to the fore on Sketches, the second of two heady 2022 releases. Whereas the first, Orbit of Sound (Unbroken Sounds), teams him up with the rule-elusive sax and flute of Anna Weber and drummer Michael Sarin, Sketches presents a slightly more straight ahead approach with pianist and vibraphonist Karl Berger and drummer Billy Mintz. But straight ahead is not quite fair, or descriptive enough ...

Festivals Talking

Moers Festival Interviews: Max Johnson

by Martin Longley
June 3, 2022

New York bassist Max Johnson has embarked on a European tour with his trio, in the run-up to the release of their new album Orbit Of Sound (Unbroken Sounds, 2022). They are playing crucial venues such as Roskam in Brussels and The Loft in Cologne, doubtless climaxing at the Moers Festival, also in Germany (3rd-6th June). Prior to the tour, the trio hadn't played together since August 2021, when they recorded the album. Your scribe was roaming around ...

Album Review

Max Johnson, Kirk Knuffke, Ziv Ravitz: Something Familiar

Read "Something Familiar" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
July 12, 2015

New York native Max Johnson does not appear to require sleep. The bassist/composer, whose career spans the wide terrain from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra to Lollapalooza to Anthony Braxton consistently delivers fresh, adventurous, high-quality music against an ambitious output. With his now-regular working trio of Kirk Knuffke on cornet and drummer Ziv Ravitz, the group has released their best work to date on Something Familiar. As Johnson's star rises, so too does Knuffke's whose been drawing high spots ...

Album Review

Max Johnson: The Prisoner

Read "The Prisoner" reviewed by Libero Farnè

by Libero Farnè
January 6, 2015

L'emergente Max Johnson, cresciuto nel New Jersey e stabilitosi a New York, dopo una seria formazione e una gavetta al fianco di alcuni dei più bei nomi dell'avanguardia s'inserisce di diritto nell'ormai vasta schiera di validi contrabbassisti-leader dell'attuale scena jazzistica internazionale. Questa sua suite s'ispira ad un serial programmato dalla televisione britannica nel 1968 e rivisto con occhio critico dall'autore in anni recenti. Dopo una messa a fuoco dei temi e delle dinamiche del gruppo in alcuni ingaggi dal vivo, ...