Haruka Kikuchi: Queen of the Tailgate Trombone

Tokyo native making her bones in old New Orleans Like a cyclone from across the Pacific, trombonist Haruka Kikuchi blew away audiences at last year’s Jubilee by the Sea with her dynamic debut performances at the 40th annual festival in Pismo Beach, Calif. Wowing at Pismo It couldn’t have been a less auspicious setting for musical magic as she first took the stage there on October 27, 2016. Children’s crayon drawings covered the plywood walls of humble and homespun Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall on a hill overlooking downtown Pismo Beach, a quiet ocean-side community of some 8,000 inhabitants. Haruka sat in with We Three Plus One—drummer Danny Coots, pianist Jeff Barnhart, clarinetist Bob Draga and guitarist Larry Scala—at the 50-year-old VFW Hall on the festival’s opening night. Scala—who has known Haruka since she relocated to New Orleans from Tokyo in 2014—brought her out West as part of his band, the Rhythm Jesters. “I’ve had the pleasure of knowing her for about three years,” Larry told The Syncopated Times, “and she is a simply a delightful young woman. “She is also delightful to play with. Haruka brings an unusual enthusiasm to the bandstand and her love of traditional jazz and swing is unsurpassed.” She wasted no time at all proving his point last year at the VFW Hall. As the band vamped a blues, she growled like Teagarden and traded fours