"Market’s House Band Serves up Swinging Second Fridays," by Market Correspondent Carolyn Wyman
“Market’s House Band Serves up Swinging Second Fridays”
By Carolyn Wyman
A little music can really enhance a dining experience. And since the early 1980s, Reading Terminal Market has been enhancing its mission of fresh produce and ready-to-eats with a special menu of piano players and small musical groups, none older or probably more beloved than the jazz group named after it.
For 27 years, the Reading Terminals have taken over Center Court on the second Friday of most months to entertain the lunch crowds, including a half-dozen Reading Terminals “groupies.”
“I used to come all the time when I worked. I come even more now that I’m retired,” said one woman, as this ensemble of Center City professionals, now consisting of a retired judge, a surgeon, a retired engineer, a music teacher and a law firm administrator, ran through a Latin samba-flavored version of “Summertime.”
“It’s the best free jazz concert in town,” enthused another regular in an audience that also included people waiting in line for sandwiches at the Original Turkey and Spataro’s, and dozens who stopped and stood to listen for 10 or 15 minutes before going back to shopping or work.
The Reading Terminals is an outgrowth of the Market’s even older program of piano performances. In 1984 Ed Schwartz was a newly elected city councilman who was already playing piano during the occasional Market lunch when full-time judge and part-time jazz drummer Richard “Dick” Klein learned of Schwartz’ jazz avocation and approached him about jamming. The owner of a long-gone Center Court salad stand introduced the pair to her bass-playing architect friend, Herman DeJong, and the Reading Terminals jazz trio was born. Within the year Thomas Jefferson surgeon-guitarist David Reiter made it a quartet.
As a teenager Reiter played in the house band for WMID-Atlantic City DJ Larry Keene’s record hops and, more recently, at blues festivals up and down the East Coast.
Pianist Bob Cohen, who replaced the ailing Schwartz this July, once shared a stage with saxophone icon Charlie Parker and was the house pianist at Society Hill’s Borgia Cafe for years. Law firm administrator/bassist Mike Etkins, who joined in August, is a veteran of a jazz quartet at the Four Seasons; saxophonist Dom Minni coaches future school band directors at West Chester University.
What makes the Market gig different and special is its anything-goes atmosphere, or, as Klein puts it, “You never know what or who you’re going to see here.”
The who includes band members’ day-job colleagues and clients as well as fellow musicians. Indeed, the list of players who have sat in with the group in the past quarter-century includes such famed Philadelphians as Bootsie Barnes, Stan Slotter and Father John D’Amico as well as total unknowns of all abilities. “A couple of weeks ago a vocalist who was visiting from Kansas City happened to come in for lunch while we were playing and joined us for a couple of tunes and she was just terrific,” recalls Reiter. Less serendipitous was the hip-hop artist who began performing right in front of the Reading Terminals a number of years back in a kind of spontaneous one-man battle of the bands.
Demanding day jobs have occasionally made it difficult for band members to make this mid-day gig. Surgeon Reiter played in scrubs more than once. And jurors on trials in Common Pleas court enjoyed extra-long recesses on second Fridays when Klein was the presiding judge.
So why do they bother?
For Klein, who serves on the board of the Market’s Preservation Fund, it’s partly to “help the Market, to add to the atmosphere that makes people want to come here.”
It’s also fun, although, Reiter says, “It’s less of a fun social thing and more of a serious musical thing since Bob signed on” — not that he’s complaining. “Musically speaking, I think the band is now the best it’s ever been,” he says.
Proof is the take from a recent tip jar: a record $100 going (as their tips always do) towards Philbert the Pig’s charitable causes.
The Reading Terminals will play Market Center Court from noon to 2 p.m. this Friday, Dec. 16 before resuming their regular second Friday at noon schedule in the new year.