1. Allen Eager was an American jazz tenor and alto saxophonist who competed in auto racing and took part in LSD experiments.
26 Facts About Allen Eager
1. 2.
Allen Eager was born in New York City on January 10,1927.
3.
Allen Eager took clarinet lessons with David Weber of the New York Philharmonic at the age of 13.
4.
Allen Eager briefly played with Woody Herman at the age of 15.
5.
Allen Eager's recording debut as leader was for Savoy Records in February 1946.
6.
Allen Eager's band consisted of Ed Finckel, Bob Carter, and Max Roach ; two of the tracks formed Eager's first release as leader.
7.
Allen Eager's 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.
8.
Allen Eager adopted the drug dependency of a lot of the bebop players in the 1940s.
9.
Allen Eager recorded with trumpeter Red Rodney for Keynote Records in 1947.
10.
Also in the late 1940s, Allen Eager recorded with saxophonist Stan Getz.
11.
Allen Eager played with Tadd Dameron at the Royal Roost in New York in 1948.
12.
One instance was much later, when a court case that highlighted the fact that Allen Eager had borrowed $48,500 from her attracted publicity.
13.
Allen Eager played with Gerry Mulligan in 1951, with Terry Gibbs in 1952, and shortly after with Buddy Rich.
14.
Allen Eager frequently played with Howard McGhee, including in Chicago in early 1956.
15.
Allen Eager lived in Paris from 1956 to 1957, and continued playing there.
16.
Back in the US in 1957, Allen Eager recorded The Gerry Mulligan Songbook under Mulligan's leadership, which was his last recording for 25 years.
17.
Allen Eager mentioned the death of Charlie Parker and his own problems with drug addiction as reasons for his withdrawal from the scene.
18.
Allen Eager appears in Jack Kerouac's 1958 book The Subterraneans as the character Roger Beloit.
19.
Allen Eager went on to pursue other activities such as skiing, competitive auto racing, and LSD experiments with Timothy Leary.
20.
Allen Eager became a ski patroller when the Hunter Mountain ski resort opened, and was there introduced to racing car driver Denise McCluggage.
21.
In July 1963 a serious crash left Allen Eager with broken bones.
22.
Allen Eager occasionally dabbled in music again, playing alto saxophone with Charles Mingus at the rival Newport Jazz Festival in 1960.
23.
In 1982 Allen Eager made a comeback with an album for Uptown Records, entitled Renaissance.
24.
Allen Eager played in England in May of the same year, playing jazz standards in his familiar 1940s style that included "terse, sidelong phrases".
25.
Allen Eager died from liver cancer on April 13,2003, in Daytona Beach, Florida.
26.
Allen Eager was survived by his ex-wife, Nancy, two daughters, a son, and two granddaughters.