Allen Eager: Land of Oo-Bla-Dee

Jazz appreciation is a lifetime pursuit. Point being that no matter how many years you spend listening to this music, you will never run out of artists and recordings to dig. The sheer volume of jazz greatness that was created, particularly in the fertile 1940s and 1950s, is extraordinary. What's most astonishing, of course, is how much of this vibrant music was created on the spot. One saxophone giant whose name might not be familiar to you was Allen Eager. His brilliance is clearly evident on Allen Eager: In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee (Uptown), a CD of remastered live dates recorded between 1947 and 1953.

In an era when jazz genius descended on New York in waves, the Bronx-born Eager stood out on 52nd Street in the mid- and late 1940s as one of bebop's leading swingers. Before Zoot Sims became Zoot Sims, before Al Cohn became Al Cohn and before Stan Getz became Stan Getz, Eager was one of the hottest New York tenors. What set Eager apart was that he was first in the East to adapt the Lester Young sound. (Wardell Gray was an equally early Young exponent on the West Coast.) Eager's high visibility in the hippest circles had a significant influence on many other tenor players who also fell under the spell of Young's horizontal, scale-centric approach. Even Dexter Gordon was influenced by the peppery Eager. [Photo, top, of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Allen Eager and Kai Winding by Herman Leonard/CTSImages.com; Photo of Lester Young by Herb Snitzer]

Eager was enormously ambitious early on, and in 1943, the year he turned 16, he played in the bands of Bobby Sherwood, Sonny Dunham, Shorty Sherock and Hal McIntyre—joining Woody Herman by year's end. At 18 he was with Johnny Bothwell [pictured, right], and a year later, in February 1946, Eager recorded with Coleman Hawkins for RCA. What's most notable about this session is that Eager was able to record Denzil's Best's bop composition, Allen's Alley, alone—with Hawkins and Charlie Shavers sitting out. The song became a bop standard and was retooled by Charlie Parker as Wee.

Jazz at the Philharmonic recordings followed, along with sessions in the late 1940s with Red Rodney, Buddy Rich. Stan Getz and a series with Tadd Dameron and Fats Navarro. Eager also fronted his own recording dates. In the 1950s, Eager recorded with Tony Fruscella, Howard McGhee and Oscar Pettiford. But as the music changed, Eager did not, and the hard-core bebopper stopped recording in the late 1950s until the early 1980s.

There were other issues as well. In 1948, Leonard Feather described Eager as a Jekyll and Hyde, "...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." In other words, drug addiction was undermining Eager's potential. 

While there is no such thing as a bad Allen Eager recording, the live sessions collected on Allen Eager: In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee are special. The album opens with a 1953 radio recording at the Hi-Hat Club in Boston, hosted by disc jockey Symphony Sid Torin. Eager's horn jumps on This Time the Dream's on Me, Out of Nowhere and Zootcase. The big surprise here is the stunning piano work of Dick Twardzik, whose imaginative playing and swing grab you instantly. Dig Twardzik's crazy chord changes on the song introductions! Sadly, Twardzik died two years later of a heroin overdose while on tour in Europe with Chet Baker.

Next up is a 1949 CBS-TV recording featuring Eager and Buddy Rich playing Eager's Some Blues.

The balance of the CD is devoted to recordings made in 1947 at photographer Milton H. Greene's [pictured] studio in New York. Eager is joined by a range of musicians, including trumpeter Johnny Carisi, baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff and Buddy Rich. Perhaps the most intriguing of the sessions features Eager, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Specs Goldberg and Max Roach. On Swapping Horns, Eager plays alto sax while Parker plays tenor. The two return to their main instruments on All the Things You Are and Original Horns.

If you want to hear what made Eager special, this CD of live recordings is most illuminating. The more you listen to it, the more you come to realize that swing was only part of Eager's appeal. His inventive improvised melody lines and timing—knowing when to allow for space—were also on the money. Eager's horn is the sound of someone having a ton of fun. And it's still catching. Eager died in 2003.

JazzWax tracks: Allen Eager: In the Land of Oo-Bla-Dee 1947-1953 (Uptown) can be found at iTunes or here. Go for the CD. The 68-page booklet that accompanies the CD features rare photos and extensive notes by Ira Gitler and producer Robert Sunenblick.

JazzWax clip: Here's Allen Eager and Serge Chaloff on The Goof and I from this Uptown CD, with Buddy Rich on drums. Listen carefully to how Eager (on tenor) comes in and out with the precise pacing of a boxer throwing jabs and right crosses...

Comments

[Joel Lewis]

Does anyone know anything more about Eager's engagement with Frank Zappa? When I was a kid & working in Bob Porter's jazz shop, our bop-crazed customers seemed to hold Eager in a special place in their pantheon --they often mentioned that he played with Zappa & had become gay in later life. The Uptown disk mentions the former but is silent on the latter issue. Zappa himself was probably the most jazz-conversant of the 60s era players and actually wrote a number of wonderful jazz compositions (20 Small Cigars & King Kong come to mind) & always hired jazz oriented Hollywood studio players for his larger projects.

[David]

Loved marc's translation of Leonard Feather. I'd agree that "Oo-bla-dee" is a very nice collection, although the sound quality leaves something to be desired. The best of Eager's recordings can be found on a two disc anthology called "An Ace Face" on the Giant Steps label. This includes the complete Tony Fruscella Atlantic album (Tony's only studio recording) which is a classic consisting of six quintet tracks with Eager, two septet tracks written by Phil Sunkel that also feature some great solos by Eager, and one quartet track that Allen doesn't play on. Eager's "comeback" album was recorded in 1982 for Uptown, to mixed reviews, and hasn't been reissued. He continued to play in Florida and in obscurity. The gay thing seems unlikely given his reputation as a womanizer and the unlikeliness of someone turning in later life. Twardzik's playing on "Oo-bla-dee" probably isn't much of a surprise to anyone who's heard his trio album or recordings with Baker. There's also some nice Twardzik on "Charlie Parker: Boston 1952" (Uptown.)

[Larry Kart]

Eager's "comeback" was fairly ghastly. He came to the Chicago's Jazz Showcase in 1982 and could barely get around on the horn. In 1986, paired with Al Cohn, he was in somewhat better shape, but Cohn, who was in great form (as he typically was in that period), seemed almost savage in his fiercely aggressive response to Eager's wistful minimalism (which at times bordered on ineptitude). These are just guesses, of course, but I had the feeling that Al (whose playing was again magnificent) was genuinely angry at what Allen had been (I've heard tales that Eager was quite an arrogant customer in his street-beat days) and also at what he had let himself become (a musical shadow, if that).

[David]

Larry, That was a very interesting post. I've heard similar stories about Hank Mobley in his later days (sadly.) Cohn's playing had generally gotten more aggressive during that period, so you might be reading too much into that. Eager has admitted in interviews to having been rather arrogant in his youth.

[Larry Kart]

One should ask Ira Gitler to be sure of the "when" of this, but it's my impression that Brew Moore was right there with Eager as a personal translator/assimilator of Lester Young with bop trimmings. Here is Moore with Machito:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbYE8bBMuMY

[David]

Nice solo by Brew on that clip! Eager was doing that Young/bop thing in the late '40s along with Getz and others. The earliest Moore stuff that I know of is early '50s, but he may have been around earlier. Another really interesting tenor is Budd Johnson who combined Lesterish phrasing with a big "Texas Tenor" sound and aggressive attack. Budd was also musical director for Earl Hines' Grand Terrace orch. where he brought in players like Bird and Diz; as well as for the Eckstein bop band. In a further display of his versatility he later recorded with Gil Evans.

[Larry Kart]

Moore recorded for Savoy in October 1948; the Machito performance is from 1949.

[David]

Another great Twardzik recording is "Fable of Mabel" by Serge Chaloff.

[David]

and there's a Mariano record on which Dick plays bongos with one hand and piano with the other.