Lesher Center Presents: Mads Tolling & The Mads Men

Mads Tolling & The Mads Men

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Program Details Approx 80 minutes with no intermission

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Mads Tolling & The Mads Men

Presented By

Celebrating the music of the 1960s Mad Men Era with his own distinctive style and innovative flair.

Internationally renowned violinist, composer, and two-time Grammy Award-Winner Mads Tolling is celebrating the music of the 1960s Mad Men Era with his own distinctive style and innovative flair.

Mads Tolling & The Mads Men – Playing the 60s was released in 2017 with two sold-out performances at the legendary Bay Area Jazz Club, Yoshi’s. The album has been a favorite amongst fans and critics alike and was in the top 30 on US Jazz Radio for two straight months, peaking at #5. Mads has created a fun and exciting program that is at once nostalgic as well as

contemporary, as he reimagines classic songs from 60s TV, film and radio. Repertoire ranges from “Mission Impossible” and “Meet the Flintstones” to “Georgia on My Mind,” “A Taste of Honey” and “All Along the Watchtower.”

Tours have taken the Mads Men to Europe and Japan, and the group has appeared in Performing Arts Centers in California, Texas, Indiana, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania.

So how did a Danish classical violin student growing up in Copenhagen in the 80s discover his passion for the 60s? When Mads was fourteen, his father gave him a Miles Davis cassette tape that changed his life.

Mads was hooked. He found a sense of intimacy and freedom in the 60s sounds of Jazz, Soul and early R&B,

which inspired him to explore the possibilities of how to get there with his violin. The result is an exhilarating and thrilling musical adventure, with Mads guiding us to places we didn’t know a violin could go.

Joining Mads on this journey are his “Mads Men”: World-class musicians Colin Hogan on piano, Gary Brown on bass, and Eric Garland on drums.

Artist Bios

Mads Tolling is an internationally renowned violinist and composer originally from Copenhagen, Denmark, now living in San Francisco. As a former nineyear member of both bassist Stanley Clarke’s band and the celebrated Turtle Island Quartet, Mads won two Grammy Awards, and he was nominated for a third Grammy in 2015. He was the 2016 winner of the DownBeat Critics Poll Rising Star Violin Award. Mads has performed with Chick Corea, Ramsey Lewis, Kenny Barron, Paquito D’Rivera, Leo Kottke and Sergio & Odair Assad.

Mads is a current member of Bob

Weir’s Wolf Bros & Wolf Pack Band.

After graduating Berklee College of Music in 2003, he was recommended

by Jean-Luc Ponty to join Stanley Clarke’s band. He has since been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, and his recordings have received rave reviews in Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Strings Magazine and DownBeat Magazine. Mads has performed for Danish royalty – Prince Frederik & Princess Mary – at the celebration of The Danish Embassy’s 50-year Anniversary. Since 2021, Mads has been a member of Bob Weir & Wolf Bros project as part of the Wolf Pack with tours across the US, including at Red Rocks, The Greek Theatre and Radio City Music Hall. He is featured on Weir’s album Live in Colorado. Mads has written several

arrangements of Grateful Dead tunes for the band, some of which are now also part of the Mads Men repertoire.

Mads has twice been commissioned to write violin concertos – for Oakland Symphony and Pacific Chamber Orchestra. He has performed his symphonic works and soloed with orchestras around the US and Japan.

Mads now leads his own groups – Mads Tolling Quartet and Mads Tolling & The Mads Men. His release, Playing the 60s, is a reimagination of classic songs from 1960s film, TV and radio, such as “A Taste of Honey,” “Hawaii 5-0” and “Mission: Impossible.” The album features vocalists Kenny Washington, Kalil Wilson and Spencer Day, and it spent two months on US jazz radio’s top

30.

With his groups, Mads has performed over a thousand concerts around the world, including at The Hollywood Bowl, Library of Congress and at the Bay Area’s Paramount and Herbst Theatres. As a featured Yamaha Artist, Mads leads clinics and masterclasses in the US and internationally.

Colin Hogan Colin Hogan was born in San Francisco to a very musical family. He began studying drums in the 1st grade, started experimenting with the guitar in middle school, and finally discovered his true passion for piano in high school. Colin was a member of the world renowned Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble alongside “young lions” Ambrose Akinmusire, Justin Brown, and Thomas Pridgen while also studying with the Jazzschool’s founder, Susan Muscarella. He then attended Cal State East Bay (Hayward) where he earned a BA in piano performance.

Colin has performed on five continents playing everything from jazz, funk, salsa, and hip-hop to tango and Balinese gamelan. He has performed with many legendary jazz musicians including James Moody, Peter Erskine, Bob Brookmeyer, Roy Ayers, and Maria Schneider. In 2004 he performed with electric bass revolutionary Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone at the California Music Awards which was nationally televised.

Colin is currently involved in many projects including Hip-Hop/R&B group Dynamic, local jazz/groove/ experimental collective the Jazz Mafia, international cafe music group Trio Zincalo and jazz/funk/fusion band The Hog Bros. with brothers Steve and Julian. He currently lives in Oakland, CA.

Eric Garland Eric Garland has been playing drums and composing music in the bay area for over 20 years. Moving from the Sierra Nevada’s in the early 90’s to attend SF State University, Eric quickly became immersed in the local bay area music scene playing everything from jazz to drum n’ bass.

Eric has worked with many great artists from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond including Roy Ayers (with Jazz Mafia Symphony), Bobby McFerrin (with Brass Monkey Brass Band), hip hop artist Lyrics Born, singer songwriter Anais Mitchell, and

in 2005, 60’s icon Donovan.

Current musical projects revolve around Karina Denike, Realistic Orchestra/Treat Street Social Club, accordionist Rob Reich, Tin Cup Serenade, Bay Area Composers Big Band and Brass Monkey Brass Band and violinist Mads Tolling.

Eric co-leads the band Klaxon Mutant Allstars with trumpeter Henry Hung and his own sextet, Eric Garlands Hodge Podge Ensemble, and every Wednesday he leads the jazz jam session at Amnesia in San Francisco.

Gary Brown Gary Brown is a skilled and versatile bassist on both acoustic and electric basses, his clear solid foundation as well as his melodic rainbow of color and counterpoint established him as a much sought after component for major recording, performance and production projects around the world. While enrolled in San Jose State University’s Art/Design/Music program Gary came to realize that music was his true calling and made the decision to make it his life and his career. He has brought a unique sound and approach to each and every endeavor he has been involved

with. In the past 30 years Gary has recorded and performed with such notable artist as Flora Purim & Airto, Steve Winwood, George Duke, Santana, Lyle Mays, Azar Lawrence, Narada Michael Walden, Gregg Rolie, Dianne Reeves, Roy Ayres, Ernie Watts, Jeff Beck ,Torninho Horta, Larry Coryell, Phararoh Saunders, Eddie Henderson, Andy Narrell, Pete and Sheila (Sheila E.) Escovedo, and Patrice Rushen.

Gary has composed music for film and television with Pray for Rain, a film and soundtrack production team whose credits include work for major cable networks HBO, Lifetime, Showtime and Cinemax, as well as for the major television networks ABC, NBC and CBS. Credits include the cult film Sid & Nancy, The Linguini Incident (that stared the late great

David Bowie), Straight to Hell, Trust Me, Zandalee (with Judge Reinhold and Nicholas Cage) and The Fox television series Key West, to name a few.

Currently dividing his time performing with Katerina Brown,The Jose Neto Band, Narada Michael Walden and many others, Gary continues to compose, perform and produce with various artists and is writing music for his solo project.

Gary is a Bass instructor and has taught and coached for SFJAZZ Education, OPC Oakland Public Conservatory, UC Berkley Jazz Department, Marin Country Day School, SF Jazz Music Program and The Healdsburg Jazz Operation Jazz Band Program.

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