Three of the Bay Area’s finest jazz musicians – violinist Mads Tolling, percussionist John Santos, and pianist Dan Zemelman – join forces to play music from all over the world. The trio will explore Afro-Cuban rhythms, the folk traditions of Scandinavia, and the compositional genius of Thelonious Monk. Sharing the bill is the amazing string quartet, Out of Bounds, grooving and swinging to music by such artists as Vasen, Turtle Island Quartet, and Tower of Power. The performance will conclude with all the musicians playing a few pieces together to make this a night to remember!

Mads has won two Grammy awards as part of the pioneering string group Turtle Island Quartet and toured for many years with acclaimed bassist Stanley Clarke. As leader of the Mads Tolling Quartet, he released The Playmaker in 2009, featuring Stanley Clarke, Russell Ferrante, and Stefon Harris, and Celebrating Jean-Luc Ponty – Live at Yoshi’s in 2012.

John is a five-time Grammy nominee and one of the foremost bandleaders, composers, producers, percussionists, and educators in the field of Afro-Latin music. He has conducted countless clinics and workshops around the world and currently teaches at the College of San Mateo and Berkeley’s Jazzschool. He has worked with a long line of acknowledged masters including Tito Puente, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Cachao, Eddie Palmieri, Omar Sosa, and McCoy Tyner, and currently directs the John Santos Sextet. 

Dan is a jazz innovator who studied at the University of Wisconsin, toured India and Sri Lanka as a Jazz Ambassador, contributed to Face to Face, the final album of blues legend John Lee Hooker, and toured with John Lee’s daughter Zakiya Hooker.

Out of Bounds features Mads on violin, Turkish violin virtuoso Hande Erdem, Grammy-nominated violist Emily Onderdonk, and Grammy-nominated cellist Joseph Hebert. Together, they play a mix of jazz, rock, funk, and fiddle music, improvising on clever covers and playing their own exciting originals.