Don Bagley

[adh1907]

Prompted by a mention in another thread, I have been intrigued for a while by references in Jack Kerouac’s selected letters, 1940 -1956, to a character referred to as ‘Wig’. Ann Charters decides he is Gerald Wiggins in the index which is a nonsense. He is white and a bass player with Shorty Rogers. Don Bagley. He turns up in Mexico City and, with a heavy habit, connects with William Burroughs. Plays Kerouac and others Lars Gullin records (I assume these would be Bagley’s  sessions with Lee Konitz etc). He also raves to Kerouac about his recent sessions with Shorty Rogers, Modern Sounds. Not sure if Kerouac or Charters disguised his name but it’s fairly obviously Don Bagley. Seems he lived to 85 so his old beatnik ways didn’t do him too much harm. 

Kerouac describes ‘Wig’ as a bebop bass player, in Mexico City (1952) playing with a US baritone saxist ‘Hood’. Bill Hood I guess.  

[JSngry]

 

[Niko]

24 minutes ago, adh1907 said:

Prompted by a mention in another thread, I have been intrigued for a while by references in Jack Kerouac’s selected letters, 1940 -1956, to a character referred to as ‘Wig’. Ann Charters decides he is Gerald Wiggins in the index which is a nonsense. He is white and a bass player with Shorty Rogers. Don Bagley. He turns up in Mexico City and, with a heavy habit, connects with William Burroughs. Plays Kerouac and others Lars Gullin records (I assume these would be Bagley’s  sessions with Lee Konitz etc). He also raves to Kerouac about his recent sessions with Shorty Rogers, Modern Sounds. Not sure if Kerouac or Charters disguised his name but it’s fairly obviously Don Bagley. Seems he lived to 85 so his old beatnik ways didn’t do him too much harm. 

Kerouac describes ‘Wig’ as a bebop bass player, in Mexico City (1952) playing with a US baritone saxist ‘Hood’. Bill Hood I guess.  

Thanks for sharing!

[jazzbo]

A few days ago I pulled his three leader sessions out to listen to and listened to the middle one (with Woods and Costa). I'll get to the other two (with Jimmy Rowles on piano) soon. I like these.

It seems after the advent of rock he moved to music for film and TV and must have done okay. He was an interesting musician, that's for sure.

[Peter Friedman]

I very recently played "Basically Bagley" with Rowles and posted it in the "What Are You Listening To" thread here. It was a nice album, but I prefer many other Jimmy Rowles recordings. At one time I had "The Soft Sell", but  never found it very appealing, and disposed of it.

[sgcim]

Bagley even wrote arrangements/orchestrations for Judee Sill's self-named great first album! Sill's husband, the jazz pianist Bob Harris wrote the rest of the charts, but he was such a notorious junkie, David Geffen and his partner Elliot Roberts wouldn't let Harris anywhere near the studio, so Bagley had to conduct the orchestra for the first album released by Asylum Records.

Edited November 2, 2024 by sgcim

[adh1907]

1 hour ago, sgcim said:

Bagley even wrote arrangements/orchestrations for Judee Sill's self-named great first album! Sill's husband, the jazz pianist Bob Harris wrote the rest of the charts, but he was such a notorious junkie, David Geffen and his partner Elliot Roberts wouldn't let Harris anywhere near the studio, so Bagley had to conduct the orchestra for the first album released by Asylum Records.

Interesting turnaround for Bagley. He sounds a pretty wild character back in the early 50s, according to Kerouac.