Allen Eager

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.

He also adopted the drug dependency of a lot of the bebop players in the 1940s.

Unusually for a white saxophonist of the time, Eager was a member of several bands led by black musicians.

Also in the late 1940s, Eager recorded with saxophonist Stan Getz.

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 to 1947.

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.

These included Coleman Hawkins, with whom he recorded in 1946, and beboppers Fats Navarro and Charlie Parker in 1947.

Eager recorded with trumpeter Red Rodney for Keynote Records in 1947.

Eager also played with Tadd Dameron at the Royal Roost in New York in 1948.

Some of these concerts were broadcast on the radio.

Critic Ira Gitler commented positively on the concerts: "Whatever he played swung with a happy, light-footed quality and pure-toned beauty".

From around this period, some rich women "sought out jazz musicians for a connection to a way of life otherwise denied them".

One of these, heiress Peggy Mellon Hitchcock, became associated with Eager, and the pair often appeared in newspaper gossip columns.

One instance was much later, when a court case that highlighted the fact that Eager had borrowed $48,500 from her attracted publicity.

Eager played with Gerry Mulligan in 1951, with Terry Gibbs in 1952, and shortly after with Buddy Rich.

He then briefly abandoned music and became a ski and horse riding instructor.

Eager's drug addiction could clearly be linked to his music career, as Ira Gitler noted: "when he was skiing or horseback riding and completely away from music, he was healthy, but every time he returned to his tenor, the demon that pursued Bird [Charlie Parker] found him again".

From 1953 to 1955 he again led his own ensemble as a saxophonist.

Eager mentioned the death of Charlie Parker (in 1955) and his own problems with drug addiction as reasons for his withdrawal from the scene.

He frequently played with Howard McGhee, including in Chicago in early 1956.

He lived in Paris from 1956 to 1957, and continued playing there.

Back in the U.S. in 1957, Eager recorded The Gerry Mulligan Songbook under Mulligan's leadership, which was his last recording for 25 years.

After this, he essentially retired from jazz.

Eager appears in Jack Kerouac's 1958 book The Subterraneans as the character Roger Beloit.

Eager went on to pursue other activities such as skiing, competitive auto racing, and LSD experiments with Timothy Leary.

He became a ski patroller when the Hunter Mountain ski resort opened, and was there introduced to racing car driver Denise McCluggage.

After some instruction from McCluggage, the pair raced in the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1961 in a Ferrari 250 GT, finishing tenth overall, first in GT and first in class.

Encouraged by their success, they flew the car to Europe and took part in the 1000 km Nürburgring; Eager crashed.