Though jazz is known as America’s original art form, the style of music has been consumed voraciously across the pond in Europe, influencing generations of European musicians. Danish-born violinist Mads Tolling came up as a young musician studying the classical style thanks to the Suzuki method, he told the Sun, and remembers his first exposure to jazz as a formative one.
During a family vacation as a teenager, Tolling remembers vividly, was the first time he really listened to jazz.
“My dad handed me a cassette tape of Miles Davis when we were in Thailand, he got a bootleg cassette off of one of the street sellers,” he said, “and when I heard that, it was incredible. Listening to “Autumn Leaves,” and things like “Birth of the Cool,” and just his playing, and the intimacy of that recording, just somehow got my attention. That was really my introduction to jazz.”
At the time Tolling was “on the path” of becoming a classical musician, he explained, and becoming a jazz master seemed out of reach for a violin player. He is still an accomplished classical violinist, performing with the Turtle Island Quartet (the group he won a Grammy with), but during his early teens, Tolling had no jazz education on his violin.
It was a year or two later, at school back in Denmark, that he first heard the famous jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli, and a path forward outside of the classical music realm became clearer to Tolling. Once he began serious jazz study though, the connections between the seemingly separate musical worlds came forward, Tolling explained.
“So, for me, there are a lot of connections because jazz really based itself, especially the harmony, off of classical music,” he said. “What kind of sets jazz apart is the rhythm, the complexity, and you’re not using a lot of sheet music all the time, you’re supposed to play off the page.”
Tolling’s experience in the rigors of classical training instilled a strong sense of tone, phrasing, and clarity in his playing, which he will share at the Solvang Festival Theater on Sept. 19. The concert is part of the Danish Days celebration happening citywide in Solvang for the weekend, and the concert itself is a fundraiser for the Atterdag Village Auxiliary.
The concert is a tribute to a style of polished jazz that became popular during the 1960s. Titled Mads Men: A Celebration of Instrumental Hits from the 1960s Mad Men Era, the concert will feature many themes from film and television that include familiar words, though Tolling will be “singing” the melodies with his violin.
“I feel the violin is one of the closest instruments to the human voice, so I am always trying to get a singing quality when I play,” he said. “I try to think like a vocalist, although without words, but you can convey many things in the same ways a vocalist can.”
The Mads Tolling Quartet will also include a guest singer for a few numbers during the concert, Tolling said. Lompoc teenager Blake Brundy will sing a few songs with the group, adding his already powerful musical theater voice to several iconic songs of the era.
The concert isn’t reserved for just television and movie themes, but also hits from popular music including Ray Charles’ version of “Georgia On My Mind” or Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.” These songs will be interwoven with the polished jazz tunes that made shows like Meet the Flintstones immediately recognizable.
The song “Meet the Flintstones” is actually a fast-paced rehash of the harmony from Gershwin’s “I’ve Got Rhythm,” Tolling explained, which provides a perfect foundation for a swinging jam.
“That’s a great example of a song that is very popular, sounds like a pop song, but is deeply rooted in jazz history,” he said. “So, we like to play that one real up tempo with everybody taking solos and that sort of thing. I love playing that tune for sure.”
Contact Arts Editor Joe Payne at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Sep 17-24, 2015.