Thomas Kelly Makagon was born on April 3, 1926, in San Francisco. The family relocated to southern California in the late 1930s where he attended high school in Sun Valley at John H. Francis Polytechnic. The 1942 high school yearbook page devoted to members of the school band and orchestra shows Earle Spencer as a member of the marching band playing trombone, and Tommy Makagon as a member of the school orchestra (pictured below) where he is shown (front row, second from right) holding his clarinet. Makagon was a member of Spencer’s first teenage bands during these school years where he also played tenor saxophone.
Spencer and Makagon served in the US Navy after graduating from high school. Tommy served aboard the USS Okanogan, a Haskell-class attack transport that saw service with the US Navy in the Pacific during World War II. Spencer formed his first professional orchestra after his discharge and Makagon joined Spencer.
The Earle Spencer band played for a dance at Los Angeles City College on October 18, 1946. Paul Polena on piano, Bobby White on drums, and Tony Rizzi on guitar were noted in the student newspaper as members of the band that was nine months old at the time. The College Radio and Record Shop took out a full-page ad to note the dance date and promote the band’s latest releases on Black & White Records. Spencer and some band members were also scheduled to appear at the record store on the Monday following the dance date.
Makagon can be heard on several Black & White 78 rpm sides that were recorded in 1947. A previous post on Earle Spencer includes some discussion of these recordings that were part of an Earle Spencer collection released by Fresh Sound Records.
Mosaic Records reissued the Earle Spencer session that included Tommy Makagon in the orchestra as part of a 11 CD set, Classic Black & White Jazz Sessions, MD11-273 in 2022. The commentary below is © Mosaic Records. The note regarding the clarinet heard on two selections is possibly Tommy Makagon as he doubled on clarinet regularly.
“The final entry in this set is one of the last recordings for the Black & White label. There are new personnel here, including some heavy hitters like Jimmy Knepper, Herb Geller plus Art Pepper, Laurindo Almeida and Buddy Childers (who handles the trumpet solos here) — all from the Kenton organization. Paul Reiner produced this one, as Ralph Bass had already left for Savoy, and judging by the first title recorded that day OH YOU BEAUTIFUL DOLL, he was looking for a pop hit. Childers is in nice form and the little trad band underneath the band vocal makes it a fun side. It’s arranged by Dexter Culbertson (known also as a trumpeter and by the name of Dane Dexter) and is the same trumpeter who is part of a jam session that was recorded (and released on CD) by a group of US Navy personnel on July 13, 1946 in Hawaii that also included John Coltrane on alto. The bassist here, Willie Stader (listed incorrectly in some discographies as Stauder), was also part of that Navy gathering.
JAZZBO is a tribute to the unique and very hip disc jockey Al “Jazzbo” (later “Jazzbeaux”) Collins who was a favorite of many listeners on both coasts most notably KSFO in San Francisco and New York’s WNEW where he held forth in his “Purple Grotto” along with a cast of imaginary characters. There are plenty of tonal colors here from this Paul Nelson arrangement and it all flows beautifully with brief little interjections by pianist Shannon Fletcher and a concluding trombone by Harry Forbes. I’m sure “Jazzbo” approved. SUNDAY AFTERNOON is a lovely melody by Spencer and the vocal by Toni Aubin is tailored especially for her sounding much like June Christy. BOX LUNCH is another Nelson chart with more Childers chops. — Billy Vera/Scott Wensel
A few more words about Earle Spencer. The big band of Earle Spencer is without doubt the most neglected, or rather, unknown in the history of the genre. Though a trombonist, he didn’t feature as an instrumentalist. But what he headed up for a few years was a band equal to the best of its time. The records were poorly promoted and distributed, and when LPs came in, relegated to reissues on 99-cent labels that didn’t get reviewed. Billy and Scott have illuminated the details; let me just say if late big bands à la Raeburn or Kenton are to your taste, you’ll be most pleasantly (and certainly resoundingly) surprised. Took only about 75 years for this band’s music to be properly presented! – Dan Morgenstern”
Tommy Makagon was featured in a Down Beat profile in 1947 where it was noted he was still with the Earle Spencer orchestra. Makagon’s next appearance was part of a Gene Roland rehearsal band that was captured at Nola Studios in New York on Tommy’s 24th birthday, April 3, 1950. The rehearsal tapes made their way to England where the few tracks were released on a Spotlite LP, The Band That Never Was, Spotlite SPJ 141. Eddie Bert took photos of the session and Tommy Makagon, Don Lanphere, Zoot Sims, and Al Cohn are seen in the saxophone section.
Tommy is next documented in Los Angeles where he is mentioned several times in newspapers as part of the regular rehearsal group of musicians at Cottage Italia on Lankershim Boulevard at Vineland. Cottage Italia was also where Gerry Mulligan began rehearsing after his arrival in Los Angeles, most notably when Bob Whitlock urged Mulligan to give Chet Baker a hearing. When Cottage Italia closed after the owner ran afoul of the law Gerry began rehearsing at The Haig.
Thomas Kelly Makagon died on November 10, 1981. He had been living in Morro Bay for several years, no longer in the music field.
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