Rob Reich, pianist and accordion player with a regular gig at S.F.'s Zuni Café, dies at 47

San Francisco Chronicle​

24-05-2025

Weekend diners at Zuni Café in San Francisco walked in to the jazz stylings of Rob Reich either at the grand piano by the door or strolling with his accordion — a timeless presence with a timeless sound.
Reich, a versatile composer, bandleader and solo performer who could cover a full century of jazz styles, was booked through Memorial Day weekend at Zuni. But the piano will be silent, with an arrangement of flowers on top, and there will be no accordion standing by on the floor.
Reich died May 15, at Orr Hot Springs Resort in Ukiah (Mendocino County), where he was a regular visitor to its meditative waters in a redwood forest environment. Paramedics were summoned after he was found unresponsive by staff in one of the resort buildings, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. He was 47.
A final cause of death is pending a full autopsy by the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office coroner. Reich's parents, Richard and Linda Reich of Sarasota, Fla., declined to speculate, other than to say he had no known medical condition that would have caused their son's sudden death.
'Rob brought tremendous pleasure and joy to the restaurant,' said Gilbert Pilgram, owner of Zuni. 'Aside from being a talented musician, he was one of those people who everybody loved.'
Reich had been in the midst of composing the annual summer performance of Circus Bella, a one-ring circus of acrobats and aerialists set to an original score by Reich. It is performed by the Circus Bella All Star Band, a six-piece ensemble with Reich conducting and playing piano, accordion, glockenspiel and about anything else that can produce sound in an orchestra.
'Rob's ability to create music in such a rainbow of styles was unparalleled,' said Abigail Munn, co-founder, executive director and ringmaster of Circus Bella. 'He was prolific in the range of .genres and quality of music that he was able to write.'
Reich's music was superlative, his father said, noting that Rob had learned the piano at age 3 by sitting down of his own volition to play 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' — 'just out of the blue, with no sheet music because he could not read yet.'
It soon became obvious that Reich was the rare child with the gift of perfect pitch. He was on his way to a life in music, a journey that reached a peak public moment in San Francisco when he was called on to play the accordion at the City Hall inauguration of Mayor Daniel Lurie in January. Accordion is the official city instrument, and Reich played the official city ballad, 'I Left My Heart in San Francisco.'
Reich was equally at ease playing accordion on call with the San Francisco Symphony at 2,700-seat Davies Hall, and playing at 30-seat Bird & Beckett Books & Records. He would fill the Glen Park store for his regular gig, with a $20 admission fee. He also fronted his own band, Rob Reich Swings Left, and could put together a chamber music quartet upon request. In a good week, he played eight to 12 gigs.
'Rob was beyond category,' said Eric Whittington, owner of Bird & Beckett. 'He played original compositions that are Rob Reich-like — some are dreamy and atmospheric, and some are rambunctious. He was just a very charming and idiosyncratic guy.'
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down live performance, Reich kept playing, drawing his audience to online shows from the house he owned in East Oakland and shared with his daughter, June Price, 15.
'He didn't prefer doing one thing over another,' his father said. 'He loved having solo gigs. He loved having gigs with one or two people. He loved small venues and large venues. He had a great smile and a unique style.'
Robert Erich Reich was born March 8, 1978, in Syosset, on New York's Long Island. His dad, Richard, was a manufacturing rep who commuted to New York City on the Long Island Railroad for 35 years.
Once Rob's gift for music was discovered, he took lessons on the piano and guitar. At Syosset High School, he played piano and drums in the orchestra and guitar in the jazz band. In his junior year, he applied to Long Island High School for the Arts, a public school program that allowed him to go to Syosset High in the mornings and spend his afternoons studying music. He also hosted a classical music radio program at Syosset and played guitar in a hard rock band called Moonshine.
After graduating in 1996, he was accepted to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. He majored in composition and graduated in 2000. At the time, there was an Oberlin migration west, and Reich joined it, driving out in a 1997 Volkswagen Jetta. He settled in Oakland because it was cheaper than San Francisco and learned his way around the Bay Area by doing delivery for the Balloon Lady. He also delivered singing telegrams.
'He became part of numerous bands, different types of music, etcetera, etcetera,' his dad said.
Reich's introduction to the local scene was on piano in jam sessions featuring graduate jazz students at Mills College in Oakland. After he heard Dan Cantrell play accordion, Reich picked up that instrument and taught himself, said Dave Ricketts, a bandmate in Gaucho, a traditional six-piece jazz band that ranges from the hot jazz of Louis Armstrong to the gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt.
For 18 years, Gaucho was the Wednesday band at Amnesia, a bar that had a painted portrait of Reich and his accordion above the entrance facing Valencia Street. But there were other bands on other nights — the klezmer band Kugelplex, the Trifles, the Amnesiacs, the Nice Guy Trio, the Nell and Jim Band, a bluegrass outfit, and Tin Hat, a chamber music quartet that toured internationally. At any given time, he was involved in as many as two dozen musical projects.
When performing solo, Reich turned the accordion into an experimental instrument for ambient music played in the lobby or the galleries at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He released four albums under his own name, with a fifth to be released posthumously. He also recorded an album with Tin Hat, three albums with Circus Bella and eight with Gaucho.
'Rob knew so much about early jazz and could play all American improvised music — jazz, country blues, bebop, surf music, rockabilly, punk rock,' said Ricketts, who played with Reich and Gaucho just last month at Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant in Berkeley. 'He could make the mandolin sound like Thelonious Monk.'
Once when they were unloading to play a wedding ceremony in coastal Marin, band members got word that they were supposed to play the second movement of Dvořák's Fifth Symphony, which they had never even rehearsed. Reich got on YouTube and found a version that he could learn instantly by ear. As the bride marched up the aisle, Reich whispered the complicated chord changes to Ricketts. It came off as if they had rehearsed for days.
'Listening to Rob on accordion is like looking at a painting,' Ricketts said. 'It makes each person feel differently, but we all know that we felt something.'
In 2009, Reich was in a relationship with jazz singer Kally Price that resulted in the birth of their daughter. That relationship ended after several years, and Reich shared custody of June.
In 2016, Reich was playing accordion at Brenda's French Soul Food in San Francisco when Steph Solis came in for dinner. Their eyes locked while she was eating fried chicken, and they stayed locked while he played. They were together after that for the rest of Reich's life.
'Our relationship had a duality of spiritual depth and whimsy,' said Solis, 39, a nutritionist and writer who lives in San Francisco. 'Our dynamic was nearly constantly playful, like romping around with one another's inner child.'
Reich began playing at Zuni in the middle of the pandemic when it was open for takeout only, of the trademark chicken for two. There was always a wait, during which Reich was hired to stand outside with his accordion to smooth the passage of time. He has been there ever since.
'If customers came over after weddings at City Hall, he would play a wedding march,' said Pilgram, the Zuni owner. 'He knew how to play everything.'
Pilgram's personal request was 'Man of La Mancha.' When Munn, of Circus Bella, would come into Zuni during lunch, he would segue into the music he'd play while she swung on the trapeze in the circus.
For 17 years, Munn and Reich have worked together on Circus Bella, with an entirely new 60-minute show each summer. The music is continuous with Reich on an elevated bandstand, dressed in a bandleader's uniform with his conductor's hat cocked at a jaunty angle.
The first preview performance of Circus Bella will be on June 4 at DeFremery Park in Oakland. Reich's score, which was mostly completed before his death, will be performed by the All Star Band, without the only music director the circus has ever known. Twenty-one shows are scheduled for open spaces around the Bay Area.
'I can't imagine creating the show without him, and I'm just one piece of all the different communities and musicians that Rob worked with,' Munn said. 'It's a huge loss for the Bay Area.'