Drummer Michael Aragon’s legacy: A foundation for young people in music, the arts

By PAUL LIBERATORE | p.liberatore@comcast.net | IJ correspondent Article Link: https://www.marinij.com/2025/11/27/drummer-michael-aragons-legacy-a-foundation-for-young-people-in-music-the-arts/

PUBLISHED: November 27, 2025 at 12:00 PM PST

In the 36 years jazz drummer Michael Aragon played every Friday night at the No Name Bar in Sausalito, he became something of a musical institution in the picturesque bayside town. But to his many friends and fans, he was more than that. He was an inspiration.

“He was all about love,” said Carrie Souza, a communications professional and musician who was also Aragon’s cousin and friend. “He was like a medicine man, and music was his connection to God. He had the biggest heart of anyone I’d ever met.”

Haley Mears, a social worker and singer who was part of the circle of people around Aragon, had a similar spiritual connection, describing him as “a mythical shaman, a bit of a prankster with a generous heart.”

Suffering from Parkinson’s disease and prostate cancer that had invaded his bones, Aragon ended the longest continuous jazz gig in the Bay Area in 2019 to spend whatever time he had left with his wife, Amanda, and his family. Four years after he played his much-celebrated last show, he died at his home in Santa Rosa on Jan. 25, 2024, at age 79. Souza was with him and his loved ones when he died.

“It was quite a send-off,” she said. “It was very peaceful. Everybody prayed and held hands. Gardenias were placed all around him. It was a beautiful passing. It was just the way he wanted it to happen.”

To honor him, she and Mears have established the Aragon Foundation, a newly formed nonprofit to help fund music, art and dance education for Marin County foster children, underserved young people and kids who have been traumatized by what they describe as “adverse childhood experiences.”

“If Michael had one prayer, it was to pass along music and the arts,” Souza said. “That was important to him.”

As a longtime social worker with the Marin County Children and Family Services, Mears saw a need among foster kids and other disadvantaged young people who might otherwise not be able to participate in the arts.

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“I’ve been working in social services for 25 years and have witnessed the protective powers and healing of the arts and music for youth with histories of trauma, who lack an outlet for expression of some of the incredibly traumatic experiences they’ve been through,” she said.

Aragon had a special place in his heart for foster children, often giving his tip jar to foster causes.

‘Keeping me together’

Aragon said playing music was the only time he wasn’t in pain. After leaving the No Name Bar, he would play occasional gigs in the Sonoma Plaza. At one point, his Parkinson’s tremors got so bad that he taped his drumsticks to his hands to play. Throughout his life, he relied on music to help him through some unthinkable tragedies. His son, Franklin, was 31 when he died of cancer. His 23-year-old daughter, Sheila, was killed by a hit-and-run driver. And his late wife, Susan, died of a brain tumor. And then came his cancer diagnosis.

“It’s a horrible thing, all that happened,” he told me when I interviewed him before one of his final shows. “I thought nothing like that would ever happen to me again. Music is the thing that’s keeping me together. If it wasn’t for that, life would be very difficult.”

‘Love in My Pocket’

Inspired by an incident at the bar, Souza and Mears wrote and recorded a song, “Love in My Pocket – A Tribute to Michael Aragon.” They managed to play it for him before he died and performed it at his memorial at the No Name Bar.

The episode that led to them writing it involves a patron at the bar who became irate one night when Aragon was playing with his quartet. During a break, the man started raving that he was unwanted and felt discriminated against. Aragon followed him outside, where the guy continued to rant, at one point claiming he had a gun in his pocket and threatening to go back inside and use it.

“Michael just looks at him and says, ‘You know what I got in my pocket? I got love in my pocket. You want some?’” Mears said. “And then he gives him a hug, and the guy calmed down and walked away. When Michael came back inside, he told us that story. With Michael, you never know. But I choose to believe it.”

‘The Beat Goes On’

With video they shot during some of his final gigs, they’ve produced a seven-minute film, “Michael Aragon: The Beat Goes On,” and are raising funds to expand it into a longer documentary.

Aragon is remembered with a memorial bench in Sausalito’s Gabrielson Park, where Jazz and Blues by the Bay, an annual summer concert series he co-founded, takes place. A native of Sausalito, he wanted the bench to honor his Portuguese heritage as a descendant of the pioneering Mancebo family. Inscribed under his name is a quote from him that says a lot about who he was as a musician and as a person: “It’s all about the love, baby.”

For more information, go to thearagonfoundation.com.

Contact Paul Liberatore at p.liberatore@comcast.net