Allen Eager has died

[ghost of miles]

Evidently this happened a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn't heard about it until Steve Schwartz from WGBH-Boston posted the news over on Jazz Corner. He also posted this remembrance from Bill Crow via the jazzwestcoast list:

Allen was an interesting guy. A real chameleon. He could learn things

faster than anyone I ever met. He went to Aspen once for his first

adventure on skis, and stayed on for a while as an instructor. He entered a

brand new Ferrari he had bought in New York and driven to Florida at

Sebring. He won his heat, having never driven in a race before. ("I read a

book about it once," he said.)

When he was young, Allen fell in love with Ben Webster's playing and

memorized all his solos from Duke's records. He went uptown and found the

hotel where Ben was living, knocked on his door and asked if Ben would take

him as a pupil. He got out his tenor and played Ben's solo on "Cottontail,"

sounding just like him. Ben ran down the hall and knocked on a friends

door: "Come in here and hear what this little white boy is playing!" He

wouldn't teach Allen, but he let him hang around, and Allen sort of became

his protegé. Then Allen went to California, where he heard and fell in love

with Lester Young. He changed his mouthpiece and reed and began sounding

just like Lester. When he returned to NYC, he got a gig on the Street, and

Ben heard about it and went down to see his boy. He couldn't believe his

ears.

Unfortunately, Allen's ability to learn fast was coupled with the ability to

lose interest in things quickly, and he also spent a lot of his time getting

high in various ways.

He turned up in Provincetown while I was playing up there one summer with

Zoot, and sat in with us on alto. He sounded like he was out of practice,

and I think he was trying to avoid imitating Bird. Anyway, I didn't enjoy

his playing as much as I had when he was playing tenor.

But whenever I ran into him, it was always an enjoyable encounter, because

Allen was a charming, interesting man of many talents. I hadn't heard of

him for years, other that that he was living in Florida, and then last year

a friend sent me a picture of him that he had taken at a jazz festival in

California.

RIP, Allen.

Bill Crow

[JSngry]

By all accounts, Eager was indeed a most interesting character. I keep finding references to him having played with Frank Zappa in the early days of the Mothers. Anybody know more about this?

Also intersting is an interview he did with Cadence in the 70s where he humorously tells of having enrolled in a Jazz Studies program somewhere recently, and was met with skepticism and disdain by the students because he "couldn't play"! I can imagine the scenario - this old mellow guy playing Prezbop showing up in the middle of a bunch of careerminded Clonetranes. It would be funnt if it weren't so damned true...

R.I.P. Mr. Eager - you lived your life to the fullest.

[Chuck Nessa]

The Uptown cd will be available within the next couple of weeks. It is a package similar to the Uptown Mingus project, with a big booklet outside the jewel box. It contains 2 interviews with Eager by Ira Gitler and Bob Sunenblick. The music is astounding - Duels with Serge Chaloff, a quartet date with Dick Twardzik and an apartment jam with Bird.

Mr E was looking forward to this release to reintroduce himself to the world, and his (almost) new home in California.

Edited May 19, 2003 by Chuck Nessa