Hong Kong jazz club Chez Trente’s owner on connecting musicians, and his upcoming festival

Joe Lung, owner of Hong Kong jazz club Chez Trente, talks about forging a musical community and his upcoming festival, a showcase for bands

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Joe Lung Yau-hang at his jazz club, Chez Trente, in Central, Hong Kong. He has used his venue to highlight independent local acts, and his upcoming music festival, Chez Trente Music Fest Vol. 2, will do the same. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 6:15pm, 4 Jul 2024

Tucked away in an unassuming alley off Peel Street in Hong Kong’s Central district, jazz club Chez Trente is not easy to find, but owner Joe Lung Yau-hang prefers it that way.

Lung stresses that he isn’t filtering the bands that get to play but rather the people who enter the space. He wants Chez Trente to be for people who are truly interested in the music and committed to being there.

“A lot of people call and ask saying they’ve been looking for the place for an hour,” Lung says, “If it takes you that much time to find this place and you are still looking for it, that means that you really like music and when you come in you respect the music.”

With nightly jazz performances from Tuesday to Saturday every week, Chez Trente is an intimate space for music lovers in Hong Kong.

The entrance of Chez Trente, in Central, Hong Kong. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

The name Chez Trente (French for “at thirty”) pays homage to the historical 30 houses neighbourhood – roughly encompassing what is today SoHo – and to the area’s tong lau (Chinese shophouses), built between 1948 and 1958.

Growing up in Hong Kong, Lung discovered his love for music through rock ’n’ roll. Like many young people in the 1990s, he listened to bands like Metallica and Radiohead, whose music transported him to new worlds.