Ron Falson, one of Australia’s foremost jazz musicians, was a regular in the nightclubs that boomed in Sydney after World War II, particularly Joe Taylor’s Celebrity Club, where he and Don Burrows formed the “frontline” of a celebrated house band.
In those halcyon days of live music, he blew his trumpet throughout the country and internationally, sometimes backing such performers as Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr and Johnnie Ray.
He often played in the old Sydney Stadium at Rushcutters Bay, the venue for concerts by Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Kenton, Mel Torme, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Buddy Rich, among others. When not playing, Falson indulged another talent, photographing singers and musicians.
Falson played until the end. He collapsed with a heart attack just after his last trumpet solo while performing at Tailors on Central, in Surry Hills, and never recovered. He was 80.
Ron Falson was one of six boys born in Clovelly to Frank Falson, a master coppersmith, and his wife, Irene. He went to Clovelly Public School and to Sydney Technical High School. Frank gave his son a trumpet when the boy was 14 and listening to jazz, particularly the Dixieland style of Bob Crosby and the Bobcats, Bix Beiderbeck, Muggsy Spanier and Bunny Berigan.
Much of Falson’s early life in the beachside suburb was tied to the sea. He became a very good swimmer, and in winter, a good rugby player, representing Sydney Tech, and later, the Randwick club. Yet music grew as the main focus of his life.
He formed a band with other schoolboys that played at school dances and surf clubs. While World War II was disastrous for many Australians, it presented an opportunity for younger musicians to prosper. Falson’s accomplished trumpet soon took him to the dance band circuit, Red Cross shows for servicemen, nightclubs, the ABC and other radio broadcasts.
His playing style evolved through Dixie, bop, cool and modern jazz, and Falson became a virtuoso in them all. A Herald review from 1951 described his playing as “inspiring” .
He played at the Trocadero, with the big band leader Ralph Mallen, with Bob Gibson at the Gaiety and Surreyville dance halls and at nightclubs such as Romano’s, Andre’s and the Roosevelt.
He met Gill Daniels, a singer and dancer, at a club, and they married. In the early 1950s, he settled for a residency at the Celebrity Club.
The start of television in Australia, in 1956, offered a new vehicle for local music. Falson arranged music for, and played on, the official openings of TCN9 and ATN-7 and the Ron Falson Quintet made regular appearances, occasionally playing his compositions, and always his arrangements of the standards.
Falson worked on TV with Johnny O’Keefe, Barry Crocker, Bobby Limb and Lorrae Desmond and on programs fronted by Dave Allen, Don Lane, Bob Rogers, Tommy Leonetti, John Singleton, Stuart Wagstaff, Mike Walsh, Graham Kennedy and Ray Martin.
By this time he and Gill were raising three children, sailing at weekends as a family and making music together. He would take out his trumpet and play the national anthem from his boat on Australia Day.
Read the full obituary on www.smh.com.au
