Allen eager

Allen Eager 1947

Allen Eager: "Bobby Hatch" 78 single on Savoy Records

Allen Eager (* 10. January 1927 in New York , NY ; † 13. April 2003 in Daytona Beach ) was an American jazz - saxophonist (tenor and alto saxophone), composer and racers .

Live and act

When he was 13, Allen Eager took clarinet lessons from Dave Weber, a musician with the New York Philharmonic. After he was allowed to audition Woody Herman at the age of 15 , he still had lessons from Ben Webster . At the age of sixteen he started playing tenor saxophonist with Bobby Sherwood , then with Sonny Dunham , Shorty Sherock , Tommy Dorsey , Woody Herman, Hal McIntyre and at 18 with Johnny Bothwell . Around 1945 he performed in the jazz clubs on 52nd Street ; In early 1946 he worked on recordings of Coleman Hawkins for RCA Victor ; During the session, the Eager composition "Allen's Alley" was recorded, which Charlie Parker took over as "Wee". In 1946 the first recordings were made under his own name for Savoy Records . In 1948 he formed his own quartet (with Bob Carter and Max Roach ) and in 1948 worked with Tadd Dameron in the Royal Roost and Fats Navarro ; he also performed with Jazz at the Philharmonic and Red Rodney .

After that Eager often played in Buddy Rich's Big Band until the early 1950s ; in his band he was seen in a 1949 CBS television broadcast with his composition "Eager's Some Blues". After a few years of musical inactivity - Eager worked as a sports teacher, rider or racing driver during this time - he again had his own quartet in Boston in 1953 , worked as a freelance musician and played at The Open Door in Greenwich Village in 1954/55 and sporadically with Oscar Pettiford , Tony Fruscella and Howard McGhee . In 1956 and 1957 Eager stayed in Paris and began playing the alto saxophone here. After his return to the USA he was forgotten; In 1960 he appeared with the Newport Rebels around Charles Mingus and Max Roach.

In the early 1960s he worked as a car racing driver; In 1961 he won first prize in the GT division in Sebring (Florida) . In the early 80s he returned to the jazz scene; 1982 Eager appeared again at the Kool Festival with Stan Getz and Al Cohn . After that he was rarely seen; Occasional appearances in Florida followed, a guest appearance in 1982 in the New York West End Cafe and in 1986 in the Chicago Jazz Showcase .

Eager can also be heard on recordings with Stan Getz , Al Haig , George Handy , Wynonie Harris , Gerry Mulligan , Terry Reig , Kai Winding , Ella Fitzgerald , the 52nd Street All Stars , Serge Chaloff and Charlie Parker.

Appreciation

Allen Eager was one of the first cool jazz tenorists and was one of those who came close to her role model Lester Young and at the same time incorporated the innovations of bebop into his playing. The critic Leonard Feather described Eager in 1948 as “a species of Jekyll and Hyde, his Dr. Jekyll is an amusing, well-read, and highly articulate boy, while Hyde is a typical product of the frustrations and neuroses of 52nd Street, with ornithological overtones. ”He's responding to Eager's drug addiction. In his Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz he calls him "one of the most talented young men of his generation."

Discographic notes

• Allen Eager: In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee , 1947–1953 ( Uptown Records , 2003) with John Carisi , Miles Davis , Dizzy Gillespie , Red Rodney , Charlie Parker, Serge Chaloff , Bud Powell , Richard Twardzik , Eddie Safranski , Buddy Rich, Max Roach
• Fats Navarro / Tadd Dameron: The Complete Blue Note and Capitol Recordings of ... , 1947–1949 ( Blue Note Records , 1995)
• Charlie Parker: The Great Sessions , 1947–1948 (Musidisc, 1995)
• Stan Getz / Zoot Sims: The Brothers , 1949/1952 ( Original Jazz Classics , 1990)
• Gerry Mulligan: Mulligan Plays Mulligan ( Prestige Records , 1951) and The Mulligan Songbook (World Pacific, 1957)

Motorsport statistics

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1961	Denise McCluggage	Ferrari 250 GT SWB	Denise McCluggage	Rank 10
1962	North American Racing Team	Osca S1000	Denise McCluggage	failure	accident

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11	12	13	14th	15th	16	17th	18th	19th	20th	21st	22nd
1961	Denise McCluggage	Ferrari 250 GT	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	PES
			10		DNF
1962	NART	Osca S1000	DAY	SEB	SEB	MAY	TAR	BER	ONLY	LEM	TAV	CCA	RTT	ONLY	BRI	BRI	PAR
					DNF											DNF

literature

• Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .
• Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1988.
• Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .
• Bielefeld catalog 1988 & 2002.

Web links

Commons : Allen Eager  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Obituaries at jazzhouse.org

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Quoted from Kunzler, p. 322.
2. ↑ According to Jazzwax.com; Originally: "... his Dr. Jekyll is an amusing, well-read and highly articulate guy, while the Hyde side is a typical gloomy product of the frustrations and neuroses of 52nd Street, with ornithological overtones."
3. ↑ Feature at Jazzwax (accessed July 20, 2010)
4. ↑ Feather / Gitler, p. 199.