R.I.P. Chris Dagley

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Ian Mann mourns the tragic death of drummer Chris Dagley.

R.I.P. Chris Dagley

Having written a few words yesterday concerning the death of Harry Beckett I wasn’t expecting to have to pen another obituary today.

In many ways the untimely death of drummer Chris Dagley is even more tragic. At 75 Harry had lived a full and active musical life but Chris was cut down in his prime at the age of only 38. He was returning home after playing a gig at Ronnie Scott’s in London and was killed in a motor cycle accident. He leaves a wife and three young daughters making this a heartbreaking family tragedy in addition to the considerable loss to the music.

Originally from Birmingham Dagley drummed for both The Midlands and National Youth Jazz Orchestras. I saw him a couple of times with NYJO back in the day (they even played my home town of Leominster) and was impressed by Chris who really drove the band forward and proved to be a brilliant and ebullient soloist.

On moving to London he became a member of the Ronnie Scott’s House Band, the BBC Big Band and played with dozens of national and international jazz musicians. A gifted sight reader he was also a veteran of the rock and pop session scene and was one of the busiest musicians around.

Among the albums reviewed on this site he appears on singer Claire Martin’s acclaimed latest release ?A Modern Art? and on locally (Ludlow) based guitarist Lee Jones’ ?Swish?.

There was surely much more to come. My condolences go to his wife and family and to his many musical friends and colleagues. Once again Sebastian Scotney’s London Jazz Blog contains a feature plus many, many comments from fans and fellow musicians which illustrate the esteem in which Chris was held. See http://www.londonjazz.blogspot.com

What a terrible tragedy. This is probably the saddest column I’ve ever had to write for this site.
R.I.P. Chris.