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Allen Eager was born in New York City on January 10, 1927 and grew up in the Bronx. He could read at the age of three, 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. He briefly played with Woody Herman at the age of 15, and at the same age, he took heroin for the first time.

By sixteen he was playing in Bobby Sherwood band, then went on to play with Sonny Dunham, Shorty Sherock, and Hal McIntyre. Eager was then with Herman again for a year in 1943, Tommy Dorsey, and Johnny Bothwell in 1945. After World War II he became a regular on the 52nd Street in New York City leading his own ensemble from 1945–47. His recording debut as a leader was for Savoy Records in 1946 with pianist Ed Finckel, bassist Bob Carter, and drummer Max Roach.

Influenced by Lester Young, his playing style on tenor saxophone was, along with contemporary saxophonists Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, Al Cohn and others. Adopting the musical forms pioneered in bebop, he also adopted the drug dependency of a lot of the bebop players in the 1940s. Allen was a member of several bands led by black musicians including Coleman Hawkins, Fats Navarro, Tadd Dameron and Charlie Parker and recorded with trumpeter Red Rodney for Keynote Records in 1947.

He would go on to play with Gerry Mulligan, Terry Gibbs in 1952, and shortly after with Buddy Rich. He then briefly abandoned music and drugs, becoming a ski and horse riding instructor. In the Fifties, he returned to again led his own ensemble as a saxophonist, frequently playing with Howard McGhee. He lived in Paris for a couple of years, then returned to 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, pursuing skiing, competitive auto racing, and LSD experiments with Timothy Leary. In the late Sixties he settled in Florida with his family, played with Frank Zappa in the 1970s, and in 1982 Eager made a comeback with an album for Uptown Records, entitled Renaissance. He toured with Dizzy Gillespie in 1983, and with Chet Baker. Tenor and alto saxophonist Allen Eager passed away from liver cancer on April 13, 2003 in Daytona Beach, Florida.

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