Todd Hubler
When Juancito Trukupey moved to Madison in 2012, one of the first things he did was seek out a place for live jazz. Everyone he asked recommended the Cardinal Bar, which for decades was the epicenter of the city’s jazz and Latin music scene.
“That was the day I decided to stay in Madison,” says Trukupey, who is originally from Spain. The vocalist and percussionist went on to join in the Cardinal’s popular Thursday night Latin jazz jam and also plays with groups Golpe Tierra, Natty Nation and Acoplados. “[The Cardinal] had a good environment and was such a good venue, not just
M.O.D. Media Productions
Juancito Trukupey, a percussionist and vocalist, had high hopes when Nomad World Pub took over the Cardinal Bar. But with the venue shifting focus away from live music, he's mourning the cultural loss for the community.
for Latin music, but for art and culture [in general].”
Trukupey wasn’t worried when Cardinal owner Ricardo Gonzalez in 2017 sold the bar to Mike Eitel, owner of Nomad World Pub, a bar with locations in Milwaukee and Minneapolis. The Cardinal’s name would change to Nomad World Pub, but Eitel — who was a regular at the Cardinal when he was a student at UW-Madison — wanted to keep the spirit of the venue intact.
Nomad’s grand opening celebration last March featured a number of Cardinal holdovers, and for a time the bar continued to book live music. But in recent months, many of the long-running acts associated with the Cardinal — including the Latin jazz jam — have left Nomad, and some say the venue’s management is to blame for the mass exodus.
“Music is not a priority at Nomad,” Trukupey says. “They said they didn’t need us.”
The New Breed Jazz Jam, Wisconsin Tango, Tony Castañeda’s Latin Jazz Sextet and a number of local big bands that had been performing regularly at Nomad are among the acts no longer booking events at the venue. Nomad’s current event programming includes a weekly drink-and-draw night, an open mic night, Geeks Who Drink trivia and occasional burlesque events. All that remain from the Cardinal days are Latin DJs and dancing on Saturday nights.
“The jazz musicians felt alienated,” says Darren Sterud, a trombonist and bandleader. “I think there were a lot of broken promises to a lot of people — employees, musicians and the community.”
Sterud worked at Nomad for a time, helping book shows as the business transitioned. He left last September following disagreements with management over the way musicians were being treated and how shows were promoted. He says the venue is having an “identity crisis.”
In an email to Isthmus, Eitel said maintaining live jazz programming at Nomad quickly became “unsustainable” for the business. “The fan base kept shrinking, people didn’t want to pay cover charges and we struggled with ways to make it work,” he says. “After many attempts to address [the issues], we were still losing so much money per week
Darren Sterud, a trombonist and bandleader, briefly worked at Nomad World Pub as a "jazz ambassador" but left after disagreements with management.
that it was threatening to put us out of business.”
Gonzalez says the loss of the Latin jazz jam is “disappointing,” but he doesn’t fault Nomad for going in a new direction. “There was never any guarantee that the Nomad would continue the programming of the Cardinal Bar,” he says. “I knew that over a period of time they would start making changes as they develop their own personality.”
He believes that any loss to the local jazz community will be temporary — several acts have found new homes at the North Street Cabaret, and the newly launched Lower Bar in the basement of Madison’s. There’s talk of Cafe Coda reopening in the former Bellini’s restaurant space on East Washington Avenue, and the Latin jazz jam is re-launching April 12 at Robinia Courtyard.
Tony Castañeda, a personal friend of Gonzalez and perhaps the musician most closely associated with the Cardinal, says Nomad ownership deserves credit for keeping the music going as long as they did.
“The Cardinal scene is over, for better or for worse,” he says. “It was a beautiful place, and we loved it, but people just gotta let it go. It’s not your club anymore.”
