For generations of Kansas City musicians, jazz was learned in clubs, jam sessions and classrooms. For some young musicians growing up near 38th and Bellefontaine it could also be heard coming from Claude Alvin Ford’s home.
Ford, a longtime Kansas City alto saxophonist, businessman, father and musical mentor, died Sept. 10. He was 90. Born Aug. 14, 1936, in Arcadia, Louisiana, Ford eventually made Kansas City home, building a life that combined family, entrepreneurship and a devotion to the city’s jazz tradition.
William Hawkins, a drummer who has been a musician for 57 years, grew up near Ford and has known the family since 1967. Hawkins remembers summer evenings when Ford would sit on his back porch playing saxophone or open the windows of his home and let the music carry through the neighborhood…