Allan Eager
| Allen Eager | |
|---|---|
Allen Eager at the Arcadia Ballroom, New York, c. May 1947
Photography by William P. Gottlieb |
|
| Background information | |
| Born |
January 10, 1927 New York City |
| Died | April 13, 2003 (aged 76) Daytona Beach, Florida |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer |
| Instruments |
Tenor saxophone Alto saxophone |
Allen Eager (January 10, 1927 – April 13, 2003) was an American jazz tenor and alto saxophonist who also competed in auto racing and took part in LSD experiments.
Allen Eager was born in New York City on January 10, 1927. He grew up in the Bronx. According to Denise McCluggage, Eager could read aged 3, and learned to drive at the age of 9 with the help of his mother, after she caught him driving a garbage truck near the hotels that his parents owned in the Catskill Mountains. He took clarinet lessons with David Weber of the New York Philharmonic at the age of 13.
Eager briefly played with Woody Herman at the age of 15. At the same age, he took heroin for the first time. Aged 16, he played in the band of Bobby Sherwood, then went on to play with Sonny Dunham, Shorty Sherock, and Hal McIntyre. Eager was then with Herman again in 1943–44, Tommy Dorsey, and Johnny Bothwell in 1945. After World War II he became a regular on the scene around 52nd Street in New York; he led his own ensemble there from 1945–47. His recording debut as leader was for Savoy Records in February 1946. His band consisted of Ed Finckel (piano), Bob Carter (bass), and Max Roach (drums); two of the tracks formed Eager's first release as leader. His playing style on tenor saxophone was, along with contemporary saxophonists Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, Al Cohn and others, strongly influenced by Lester Young; Eager appears to have been the first of this group to follow Young's light sound on tenor, and was the best known and most respected of them at that point. Young's assessment was that "Allen Eager is [...] the best of the grey boys [white players]". At the same time as following Young in sound, Eager also adopted the musical forms pioneered in bebop. He also adopted the drug dependency of a lot of the bebop players in the 1940s.
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