by Tyler Schmitz
For this week’s edition of Sunday Standards, I was in a bit of a bebop mood. So for the Scenes From the Saxophone Section, I decided to spotlight a hard bop specialist, Allen Eager. Now, Eager was a bit of a prodigy, I mean the guy learned to read at age 3, and only about half a decade later learned how to drive. But, his jazz career officially took off when he was fifteen when he had the chance to play with Woody Herman for a bit. He was already lining up gigs by age 16, and after World War II, even had the chance to have an up-and-coming Max Roach in his own band in 1946. To say his playstyle was inspired would be an understatement, as he got the opportunity to play with the “Bird” himself, Charlie Parker, in ‘47. So for this week, I made no mistake in picking three hard bop tunes to capitalize on the expertise of Eager’s specialty.
“Nellie’s Nightmare,” a tune from Buddy Rich’s discography, and notably the only studio recording tune of the segment for today, opens up fast with a swingin’ piano solo that leads into a cool oscillating saxophone line that’s played in the lower registers. Other than that, it’s a really standard bebop tune, and Eager leads his group well in this one.
Up next was “Out of Nowhere,” not quite as fast as the last, but still a bop nonetheless. Now this is the tune for Allen to really shine, as the first half of the tune is him blowing his reed. In his feature, you can notice him rocking the same riffs one right after the other, sometimes giving a bit of variation, sometimes keeping it the same. This is how soloists keep it simple, and it can be used to great effect to fill up time. You can’t run out of ideas too early, or else things can end up sounding complicated, or you can use previous patterns later in your setlist, and that’ll make everything to begin to sound the same (it’s a whole different story entirely, however, if you do have a dedicated closer riff).
And finally for the week, “Some Blues” was the set closer. A traditional bebop, this one is also another feature of Eager. Now this one has a different solo technique that he features, and it’s when you harp on the same exact note for a measure or two. What you do to this one now is actually really simple, you play the same note (duh), but you give the phrase a complex rhythm. You can play it long, then short, then go for a syncopation, or really however you want. But this is a staple of bebop tunes, and it’s cool when you can keep it as simple as it gets while making it interesting.
