1. Ford Thompson Dabney was an American ragtime pianist, composer, songwriter, and acclaimed director of bands and orchestras for Broadway musical theater, revues, vaudeville, and early recordings.
20 Facts About Ford Dabney
1. 2.
Ford Dabney attended the business education division of Colored High School in Washington, DC, grades nine through eleven.
3.
On June 22,1901, Ford Dabney was promoted from 1st year to 2nd for the fall of 1901.
4.
Ford Dabney moved from Washington, DC, to New York around 1901, two or three years before James Reese Europe moved there.
5.
In New York, Ford Dabney studied music and played piano in parlors.
6.
Ford Dabney played many piano engagements in drawing rooms filled to capacity with prominent society.
7.
Ford Dabney's itinerary included a trip to France to play for President Emile Loubet, then to Germany.
8.
In 1910, Ford Dabney formed several touring vaudeville groups, among which, he and violinist Willie Carroll conceived and produced Ford Dabney's Ginger Girls, who first performed at his theater before going on the road.
9.
Ford Dabney's Theater received competition when the Hiawatha Theater, running vaudeville, opened in October 1910.
10.
Ford Dabney kept the name, "Dabney's Theater," but operated it as a motion-picture theater until January 1912, then added back vaudeville.
11.
Ford Dabney began working with James Reese Europe at the Clef Club in the 1910s, and together collaborated with Florenz Ziegfeld on his shows in New York City.
12.
Europe and Ford Dabney's collaborations included eight pieces to accompany the dancing of Vernon and Irene Castle.
13.
Ford Dabney, leading his own Syncopated Orchestra, was the musical director of Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolic for 8 years, from 1913 to 1921.
14.
Ford Dabney joined the Royal Flying Corps, trained as a pilot, but was killed in 1917 during flight training crash at Camp Taliaferro, near Fort Worth, Texas.
15.
Ford Dabney operated an entertainment bureau, and for many years, performed engagements in West Palm Beach and Newport.
16.
Ford Dabney was close friends with the family of Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall and was an honorary pallbearer for the funeral of Marshall's first wife, Vivian Burey Marshall.
17.
Wendell Phillips Ford Dabney was of the most notable musicians in Richmond, Virginia.
18.
Ford Dabney had studied attended music in 1883 at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.
19.
Ford Dabney's legacy was the subject of the a 23-minute documentary released in 2017, The Hail-Storm: John Dabney in Virginia, by Hannah Ayers and Lance Warren.
20.
One of John Marshall Ford Dabney's sons John Milton Ford Dabney was a player in the Black baseball leagues.