Jazz News — Herman’s Hideaway goes Latin; Rocco the vibist says farewell; Chief Adjuah’s baggage nightmare

What’s news in jazz, music, and the arts

With 40,000 bands and music sets under its belt, Herman’s Hideaway built a great local music legacy on South Broadway and Iowa Street, fighting off big operators and ticket companies, and giving bands the full take of door revenues. Via Facebook, third-generation owner Mike Roth announced new operators, and they’re going Latin. While doing renovations, issues beneath the dance floor were revealed, so all shows were canceled in July. When it does re-open, the spot will be called Coco Bongos, described on their Facebook post as “a premiere Latin night club while maintaining a focus on booking local and national touring bands.” (SOURCE: Facebook/Herman’s Hideaway)

Congrats to a young man we’ve been following at KUVO for a few years. Rocco LC Williams is leaving the Mile High for the MFA program at California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita, north of LA. He celebrated his farewell show at Dazzle last week with Nathan Borton, Hunter Roberts, Alejandro Castaño, and visiting trombonist Altin Sencalar.
(SOURCE: Instagram: @rocco_lc_williams) Picture: Young Rocco with mentor Gregg Tanner Harris

Musicians can become quite attached to their instruments, especially the instruments that they create. Such is the sad story of Chief Adjuah (formerly known as Christian Scott)’s latest innovation, a custom gravi-hybrid creation inspired by a traditional African instrument called the kamele n’goni.

At the tail end of his European tour, Chief Adjuah reports on his Instagram account that Air France first lost his instrument at Charles DeGaulle Airport, then found the case, which suffered terrible damage, including the theft of materials inside the case. According to Chief, “We had to use our AirTags to locate our lost luggage. As I walked to the oversize area where the luggage was located the handler was literally flipping the Bow’s road case over and over finally slamming it down on the side that says ‘This Side Up.’” He concluded, “This one-of-one instrument is gone forever. Do not know if I’ll be returning to tour Europe again after this run in the fall.”

There are two interesting aspects of this situation. First, Paris is about to host one of the largest gatherings ever, the Summer Olympics, so all their systems and personnel will be tested to the utmost. (Last week’s internet outage and flight cancellations already stressed Olympic teams headed to France to acclimate.) Second, Europe, and France in particular, have a historically good reputation when it comes to treating jazz musicians with love and respect. Some artists are not feeling the love.

We’re standing by for any public reply from @AirFrance. (SOURCE: Instagram: @chiefadjuahofficial)

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