Mads Tolling & Jacob Fischer A Tribute to Legendary Danish Violinist Svend Asmussen Blue Whale

Monday, October 22 at 9:00pm

 

Mads Tolling & Jacob Fischer
A Tribute to Legendary Danish Violinist
Svend Asmussen 
Blue Whale

 

 

A MESSAGE FROM VIOLINIST MADS TOLLING:

 

I am a Danish jazz violinist, 37 years old, and live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark, and after graduating high school I moved to the US, where I finished my degree at Berklee College of Music in Boston. In 2003 I joined bassist Stanley Clarke‘s band and later, the celebrated string group, Turtle Island Quartet – a group I won two Grammy Awards with. I have also performed with Kenny Barron, Ramsey Lewis, Chick Corea, Paquito D’Rivera and Jean-Luc Ponty.In 2016 I won DownBeat Magazine’s Critics Poll for Rising Star Violinist.

 

I now spend most of my time working with my own band, The Mads Tolling Quartet, which consists of violin, guitar, bass and drums. We have released three CDs with guest artists such as Stanley Clarke, Russell Ferrante, Stefon Harris and Kenny Washington. The releases have received rave reviews in the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR Morning Edition as well as in the Danish Press including Berlingske Tidende and Jazz Special.

 

A year ago Danish jazz violin legend Svend Asmussen passed away shortly before his 101st birthday. Svend has been a great influence on me. At 15 years old I called him up to ask for lessons, and his advice to me was to listen to Stuff Smith. Quite a few years later I got invited for brunch at his house, and he gave me a big stack of his handwritten music, when he felt it was time to hand it over to the next generation of improvising violinists. A nice gesture I felt, and we have been in touch ever since.

 

The last few years I have toured around with guitarist Jacob Fischer and my Scandinavian quartet. Jacob was in Svend Asmussen’s quartet for15 years. We have played in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Germany with a total of over one hundred concerts. We celebrated Svend’s 100th birthday year at the Royal Library in Copenhagen in 2016, and last year we commemorated him as we played at the famous Jazzclub Montmartre in Denmark. To have Jacob in the group has created an exciting program with many classic standards including Svend’s own compositions and arrangements.

 

We have a new tribute CD out:
Mads Tolling Quartet, feat. Jacob Fischer – Celebrating Svend Asmussen.
You can listen to it and watch videos from the below links. Much of the music features the entire quartet, including bass and drums with a few duo tunes.

 

 

Website: www.madstolling.com

 

CD Release
Mads Tolling Quartet – Celebrating Svend Asmussen:

 

Videos

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