ADRIAN FORD’S RAGTIME TUNES

Adrian Ford, who died in 2017, was regarded as one of Australia’s top jazz pianists. In addition to piano, he also played trombone, clarinet and cornet, and taught clarinet. He was also a talented composer and arranger. Although known primarily as a jazz person, his top love of music may well have been ragtime, but he had more opportunity to pursue jazz. His main outlet for ragtime was performing solo piano at jazz festivals; performing at jazz festivals with his group Spirituals to Ragtime, and including ragtime as a component of his many solo piano performances.

Over his lifetime he wrote, so far as we are aware, 31 ragtime tunes, making him a very prolific Australian ragtime composer. Few of his ragtime tunes were ever recorded commercially, but he did create renditions of about half of these tunes for friends, and here we present those renditions plus performances of other tunes created from sheet music in the possession of his fellow ragtime enthusiast David Beattie.

Some visitors may argue that the tunes are not all rags, but we don’t claim they are – some are most certainly rags and the others we just feel have sufficient syncopation to be deemed to be ragtime.

Alas we do not have access to the sheet music for 9 of Adrian’s ragtime tunes (Boronia Rag, Brooklyn Rag, Forbes Street Stomp, Glasstime Rag, Mulla Mulla Rag, Ron Knight Stomp, Royal George Rag, Two-Handed Ragtime Blues Stomp and Unrehearsed Rag). We understand that the Australian Jazz Convention Archives have the sheets for Ron Knight Stomp and that they will be accessible once the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted in Victoria. If anyone has either a rendition or the sheet music of any of these we would be very grateful to secure copies and add renditions to this page.

Below are some biographical notes on Adrian, his discography and details of his winning entries in the Australian Jazz Convention Original Tunes Competition, followed by a table of Adrian’s ragtime tunes with links to mp3 renditions of most of the tunes.

Many thanks to the Australian Jazz Museum (Mel Blachford OAM and Robert Ayres in particular), Bill Haesler OAM, Margaret Anderson, Dr Harold Fabrikant and Steve Grant for their help in making this page possible.

David Beattie & Michael Mathew
November, 2020

ragtime.dave1 @ yahoo.com.au

Biography

Jazzman Adrian de Brabander Ford was born in Sydney on 26 April 1940. He was the second of three brothers. He began piano at the age of eight, studying for two years at a local piano school from the age of nine. His teacher gave him a love of Fats Waller and taught via the Shefte Method, both of which influenced his approach to stride and syncopation. He came into jazz in 1957 as a teenager, listening to the Paramount Jazz Band at the Sydney Jazz Club. He was a graduate of the SJC’s 1960s musician’s workshop, and took up trombone and clarinet. He later also took up cornet, and taught clarinet. Adrian was left-handed, which we suggest may explain his solid left hand on the piano – ideal for stride and handy for ragtime.

Adrian joined the Jazz Pirates in 1962, worked with Geoff Bull’s Olympia Jazz Band during 1965-69, Graeme Bell All Stars, the Big Apple Union blues band, and with various rock groups.

He formed the York Gospel Singers in 1966 specifically to perform gospel music and used singers Allison McCullum, Jeannie Lewis, John Bates, Bob Coneroy and John Dawe. The York group appeared as the support group for a Sydney Town Hall concert featuring US blues singers Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee and were a hit at the 1966 Australian Jazz Convention in Melbourne.

He toured Europe, Canada and the US with Maurie Garbutt’s Melbourne-based Yarra Yarra New Orleans Jazz Band from 1969 to 1971. He was offered some jazz jobs, in Paris, London, etc. and was asked if he would be keen to join up with the late great band lead leader and legend in the UK, Ken Colyer, but decided the bottom half of the globe offered a better life-style.

On his return to Sydney Adrian joined Chris Williams' Jazz Band (later to become the Unity Jazz Band) and was co-founder of the Bill Haesler Washboard Band in November 1971, having played with Bill since 1969. He toured Australia with the Yarra Yarra New Orleans Jazz Band and New Orleans trumpet player Alvin Alcorn in April 1973 and, over the years, freelanced at a vast number of venues on piano, trombone and clarinet.

An annual Australian Jazz Convention regular, Adrian had a composer’s flair and won its Original Tunes Competition on five occasions. He formed the Charleston Chasers in 1976, his Big Band in 1976 and, among others, worked with Nick Boston’s New Orleans Jazz Band (1982), the Purple Grape Quartet (1988), Jiri Kripac’s Hot Buns (1992-93), Bill Dudley’s New Orleans and was a founder of Squeak and Squawk. He was a familiar face at jazz concerts, jazz festivals and local and interstate jazz clubs, recorded as a soloist, with the bands he worked with, and others. Adrian was a Director of the Professional Musicians' Club from 1976 until 2015.

Adrian worked in the paymaster’s office at Cockatoo Island for many years. On retrenchment he worked as a house painter, learnt the trade and ran his own business up until about 2013. He married twice, first to Claire, a French girl whom he met in Paris during the 1969-71 Yarra Yarra Band tour and we understand they married in Germany. She returned with him to Australia and they lived in Balmain. When the marriage broke up years later she returned to Paris. Adrian moved to Balmain and married Maggie early in the 1990’s knowing she had MS. Maggie died in 2019.

Adrian became ill following a mild stroke in November 2013 and was reluctantly forced into musical retirement. He died at The Parkview Nursing Home, Five Dock NSW on Wednesday, 5th July 2017 following his long illness.

Discography

Adrian's songs “Deceptive Moon” and “Hush a Bye” are included on Jeff Bradley’s “Sunset” CD.

Winning Entries, Australian Jazz Convention Original Tunes Competition

1974     Vy Vee
1975     Ex and Bacon
1982     Late Again
2008     I Know that My Wife Cares
2010     This is Paradise

The tune list

Right click on the audio controls to download the performance.

The End