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Max Leake and Weather or Not playing the music of Weather Report, The Yellowjackets, Jeff Lorber and more.

Max Leake - Keyboards
Robbie Klein - Saxophone
Billy Kuhn - Drums
Mike Houlis - Bass
Percussion - TBA

Max Leake has been a part of jazz piano in Pittsburgh since the 1970s. He began his musical training at age six. By the time he was 15, he was working with local Pittsburgh bands and backing up national acts in local supper clubs. At the age of 18, Max was traveling around the country with acts such as the “Ink Spots” and the “Marcels”.

Max spent time playing in showbands in the Catskill Mountains of New York backing up variety acts, comedians and singers. He also cruised around the Western hemisphere as a house pianist in the showbands on many different Princess Cruise ships.

In 1985 he released his self-produced album “Buns in the Sun” on Visionary Records, a record label started by Max and Mike Hurzon. Max has produced, composed and recorded with dozens of other artists including Tim Eyermann and East Coast Offering, Kenny Blake, Salsamba, Billy Price, and the Balcony Big Band.

Max has been recording, composing, arranging, and performing for 35 years with some of the best jazz and blues artists in the world including Roger Humphries, Stanley Turrentine, Rick Margitza, Dwayne Dolphin, Henry Johnson, Rebecca Parris, Billy Price, Joe Negri, Sandy Staley, the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild Orchestra, Tommy Tedesco, David “Fathead” Newman, Don Latarski, Al Dowe and Etta Cox, and the Balcony Big Band, just to name a few. He was voted “Best Jazz Keyboardist” in the “In Pittsburgh” music awards in 1989, 1991 and in 1995.

Max began composing and performing music for websites, videos, planetarium shows and CD-ROMs for various advertising and multimedia production companies with his own home-based music production company. He is currently a multimedia developer for the WISER Institute, which is a medical simulation education facility and actively performs, composes, arranges, and produces for live performances, multimedia, and recordings.

As of January of 2017, Max is an adjunct professor at the Mary Pappert School of Music at Duquesne University. He also is the musical director for the actress, producer, and vocalist Tamara Tunie.

In October 2019, Max was honored as a Pittsburgh Jazz Legend by Manchester Craftmen’s Guild’s jazz program, MCG Jazz. This honor is given every year to five jazz musicians from Pittsburgh, who have spent their lives performing and supporting jazz in the Pittsburgh area jazz scene.