Kenny Hagood

01 / The Detroit story

The Detroit story

Kenny "Pancho" Hagood was born in Detroit and was singing professionally by seventeen, when he joined Benny Carter's band. His warm baritone made him one of the few ballad singers accepted in the bebop world: he sang with Dizzy Gillespie's big band from 1946 to 1948, joined Tadd Dameron later in 1948, and recorded two pieces with Thelonious Monk that year. In 1950 he sang "Darn That Dream" with Miles Davis's nonet, a track later included on Birth of the Cool. He then lived in Chicago and later in Paris, where in 1960 he had a brief marriage to the Detroit pianist Alice McLeod, later Alice Coltrane; the marriage broke down because of his heroin addiction, and she returned to the United States with their daughter. He recorded with French saxophonist Guy Lafitte in the 1960s, lived in Los Angeles from 1965 to 1980, and in the early 1980s moved back first to Chicago and then to the Detroit area, where he died in 1989.

Highlights

1. Began singing professionally at 17 with Benny Carter
2. Vocalist with Dizzy Gillespie's big band, 1946–1948
3. Recorded with Thelonious Monk (1948)
4. Sang "Darn That Dream" with Miles Davis (1950), on Birth of the Cool