Bert’s Marketplace is the Eastern Market Live Music Nexuses

In operation for over a quarter of a century, Bert’s Marketplace is one of Bert Dearing’s longest running clubs. He has had a string of 10 or so clubs and halls going back to Bert’s Black Horse Saloon which was around in 1968. The Marketplace’s infamous Thursday night jam sessions have run for a decade, non-stop and many feel it had a place in reviving the city’s jam session scene in recent years. Many local musicians from Larry Smith to John Douglas have had long runs here. Among the Marketplace’s predecessors, Bert’s Place on Jefferson, had a legendary run from 1977 to 1987, featuring, as Dearing put it, “anybody that was in town,” from Earl Van Dyke and fellow Funk Brothers to Marcus Belgrave, J.C. Heard to Lefty Edwards.