Mads Tolling & Mads Tolling Quartet - Celebrating Jean-luc Ponty: Live At Yoshi's (CD)

Release Date: 05/15/12

Grammy-Winning Violinist Mads Tolling pays tribute to his music hero, Jean-Luc Ponty, including hit songs, 'New Country' and Zappa's 'King Kong.'

Mads Tolling, internationally renowned violinist, violist and composer, is a two time Grammy Award-Winner. Tolling is a former member of Turtle Island Quartet, and he has recorded and performed hundreds of concerts with bassist Stanley Clarke over the past decade. Born and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark, Tolling moved to Boston to study at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. He soon spent most his time touring with some of the greatest musicians in the US, including Paquito D'Rivera, Leo Kottke, Ramsey Lewis, and Kenny Barron.

'Celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty: Live at Yoshi's' is Tolling's third CD release. A few years back he released the critically acclaimed 'The Playmaker,' which features Stanley Clarke, Russell Ferrante and Stefon Harris. This time Tolling pays homage to one of his mentors, the great French jazz violinist, Jean-Luc Ponty. Tolling does so with his own quartet in an electric atmosphere at the famed Bay Area jazz club, Yoshi's.

After Mads Tolling graduated Berklee College of Music in 2003, Ponty recommended him to join Stanley Clarke's band, which lead to seven years of touring. Tolling explains that 'It was my goal with this album to have a wide range of material that was closely related to Ponty - I didn't want to recreate his compositions, but instead offer my take on them and also show the great range of projects he has done through the years, including Frank Zappa's band, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Rite of Strings and even the swing and bebop stuff he did early on in his career.' The set list includes some of Ponty's greatest hits, 'New Country' and 'Enigmatic Ocean' along with music by Ponty's cohorts: John McLaughlin's 'Lila's Dance,' Stanley Clarke's 'Song to John' and Zappa's 'King Kong.' Closing the CD is Tolling's own tribute to Ponty: 'Pontyfication.'

The comment most folks had after the Mads Tolling Quartet show at Yoshi's was: 'I wish someone had recorded that....' Someone did - and now it's available - in high fidelity!