Robert C. Ford

Born: August 5

Robert C. Ford, aka Wall $treet Poet, is an American poet and spoken word artist based in New York City. He frequently collaborates with Composers Concordance, a contemporary music organization, and other world class performers for both recorded and live music featuring his words self-narrated or brought to life by accomplished jazz and opera singers.

In 2021 Ford released The Music Between Us, an album of his poetry reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic, cancel culture and other then-current events, set to music by Charles Coleman (Paavo Järvi, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Kristjan Järvi, London Symphony Orchestra), Mark Kostabi (Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusion, Ramones Adios Amigos, Ornette Coleman) and Gene Pritsker (Matrix Resurrections, Joe Zawinul), on Composers Concordance Records/Naxos Distribution. A follow-up album Footprints of Steel, a collaboration with composers/musicians Carli Muñoz (Beach Boys, Eddie Gómez), Gene Pritsker and Jay Rodriguez (Groove Collective, Miles Davis) is expected to be released in the summer of 2024. He also wrote lyrics for Not All Apples Are Blue Color, a 2021 anti-Barbie anthem and video by Take a Pick (Brian DuFord, Milica Paranosic) encouraging people to overcome negative body image, and The Difference Unhappiness, a lyrically solemn but musically upbeat jazz tune on Sound Liberation's 2023 album Better Now, featuring the powerhouse soprano vocals of Adriana Valdés accompanied by Gene Pritsker (guitar), Franz Hackl (trumpet--Outreach Music Festival), and Gerry Brown (drums--Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Stanley Clarke, Return to Forever).

Ford has performed at renown NYC venues such as Birdland Jazz Club, The Bitter End, Chelsea Table + Stage, DROM, Greenwich House, Joe's Pub, Nublu, Pangea, Pianos, Le Poisson Rouge, Queens New Music Festival and Theatre 80 as well as Howland Cultural Center (Beacon, NY), Jazz Club ZWE (Vienna, Austria) and San Diego State University/NWEAMO Festival. In September 2022, he was one of four poets featured at the storied Players Theatre (NYC) with Grammy-award-winning artist Suzanne Vega as part of The [Greenwich] Village Trip Festival.

His poetry set to music has received airplay on jazz and eclectic radio stations including WFMU 91.1 FM (Jersey City, NJ), WPRB 103.3 FM (Princeton, NJ), WRUU 107.5 FM (Savannah, GA) and WMSE 91.7 FM (Milwaukee, WI).

He is a member of Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) with 25+ registered songwriter credits. 

Ford's work has appeared in several publications, including Maintenant, the highly acclaimed annual journal of contemporary Dada writing and art, with recent cover art by Chuck Connelly, Mark Kostabi and Fred Tomaselli, published by Three Rooms Press.

His poetry has been featured in short films by the Mexican director Octavio Maya Rocha, including Ascending Volumes, inspired by a painting by Mark Kostabi, and The Call - NYC, where a visual artist, a musician and a poet bring light to the darkness of the COVID-19 pandemic through their art.

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