Max Abrams Finds A Way to Give Back

Saxophonist Max Abrams has been with The Mavericks for over 15 years and as he along with the rest of The Mavericks family, watch their brave frontman Raul Malo battle hardship he is finding a way to give back.  

Last year, Malo was diagnosed with colon cancer.  As he received treatment and pushed into overdrive to get healthy and keep the band on the road, Malo received some unnerving news.  In September of this year, he announced that he had been diagnosed with leptomeningeal disease, a serious condition where cancer affects the membranes of the brain and spinal cord.  

In typical Malo fashion, he and his family have been keeping fans updated and sharing stories of warmth, love and overall, the joy of music and their musical community.  Through their GoFundMe Malo was able to spend some time in Houston’s MD Anderson last month.

He and his wife had nothing but praise and love for all of the staff and support they got at MD Anderson as the center itself celebrated him on their large signs outside of the hospital. Between his procedure, tests and scans Malo even felt well enough to stop by Rockin’ Robin Guitars.

This weekend at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium friends of the band will perform in a two night special with Dance The Night Away: A 35-Year Musical Legacy Celebrating The Mavericks & Honoring Raul Malo.  The concert will be streamed on Nugs and Abrams will be on hand for the special event.

Recently Abrams, who had already been rolling out his solo album Samba Americana, announced his that all proceeds from his instrumental single “Harvest Moon” will go directly to Malo and his family.  

“Everyone knows how expensive these treatments are and how much these things can take out of a family, not just emotionally and spiritually but financially, so the goal was just to use this to give back as much as we can,” says Abrams. 

“There are many great singers in the world and many great writers and Raul is both but I think his real gift is his ability to make an audience feel what he’s feeling and that is his joy and his sadness and his wonder and I’ve seen him do it for a thousand nights,” says Abrams. 

When discussing Malo’s cheerful conversation with the Houston Press back in 2024 when the band played the Smart Financial Centre, Abrams is not surprised at all by the frontman’s positive outlook on life and health. “When you talk about the optimism that he shared with you about his treatment and his prognosis, that swears with the Raul that I know, someone that would meet this moment with a certain grace. I think we all hope that we can return some of that grace and joy to him and if not now, when.”   

Fans are encouraged to stream his single, add it to playlists and use it on social media to boost its streams as each time someone listens to the beautiful track, the Malo family gets a little relief.  

“Harvest Moon came about because it was a song we covered and I always thought it was a bit of a magic trick,” explains Abrams who arranged all the tracks on the album and worked on the album for many years before beginning to roll out the final tracks.  

“Raul’s interpretation of it was just so graceful and lovely and it was a tune that I always just loved to play. It’s also a tune that has such a strong and perfect melody that it works as an instrumental.”  

Listening to Abram’s take on the Neil Young classic takes the song into a brand new dimension with Abram’s saxophone perfectly slipping into the role of vocalist adding a bossa nova twist. His arrangements take apart every little detail of these well written songs and amplify them with thoughtful instrumentation creating what he describes as a “Panavision” version of these songs. 

“The aspiration of my new record was to marry a lot of classic country and americana repertoire with the Brazilian samba and bossa music that I love,” explains Abrams. “So many of these songs never became part of the great American songbook, they were country classics or americana classics but were never picked up by Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald or Louis Armstrong. So the record is a mashup if you will of two traditions that never met but should have.” 

Abrams, who was raised in Lynchburg, Virginia, began immersing himself in the local musical community as a young child playing gigs with his parents since he was eleven years old. “It was a great place to grow up because we just had a community of extremely skilled and very generous older musicians.”  

He took that sense of community and combined it with his love for jazz then expanded even further into the influences of his time with The Mavericks and the past 26 years in Nashville. Abrams reimagined songs like “Jolene” and “Waltz Across Texas” melding them into something obviously recognizable but completely different than the original.  

“Jazz has a very clear lineage even if you look at just saxophone players,” says Abrams explaining the clear sonic line between players like Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young to Dexter Gordon and John Coltrane and so on.  

“I fell in love with a lot of it,” he says, drawing parallels between jazz and country. “The performances, the musicians, the recordings are as emotionally resonant as anything that I’ve encountered in the jazz music that I grew up loving and playing and I really wanted to find a soundscape that would let me put these things together.” 

His time with The Mavericks and in Nashville not only exposed him to a great selection of songs but also an open-minded audience that could enjoy a large, bilingual band that never sticks to only one genre and the principal of staying true to one’s artistic vision.  

“Raul always chose art over commerce in all decisions great and small and that was not an easy decision to make. Keeping a nine-piece band on tour is like juggling flaming swords, it’s the hardest thing to do and he always made the decision to do it because he always cared more about the art than the bottom line.”

To learn more about Max Abrams and stream “Harvest Moon” visit maxabramsmusic.com To further support Raul Malo and his family please visit the family’s GoFundMe.

This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.