In early 2023, Bastiat’s Window offered an essay on jazz pianist Lance Hayward, with a sidebar on jazz saxophonist and clarinetist Alan Greenspan. Yes. That Alan Greenspan. If you’d like some fun stories about the obscure but interesting Hayward, go back and read “Lance Hayward on Piano, Alan Greenspan on Sax.” But here, I’ll offer a revised version of the Greenspan segment because this morning, the longtime Federal Reserve chairman passed away at age 100. I’ll also mention a tenuous (and speculative) connection between Greenspan and Hayward.
In brief, Greenspan’s career as chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers (1974-1977) and chairman of the Federal Reserve Board (1987-2006) resulted from his earlier role as a saxophone player in a notable swing band around 1944.
As a young man, Greenspan was a talented musician who, for a time, attended the Juilliard School—one of the world’s finest colleges of music. In 1944, he became a saxophonist and clarinetist with Henry Jerome and His Orchestra. Some websites claim that Greenspan played with the much-higher-profile Woody Herman band, but that’s apparently false. One blogger asked Greenspan whether he played with Herman, and Greenspan responded, “No, but I played sax with those who played in the Woody Herman band.” One of those he played alongside was the legendary Stan Getz, and he concluded that he would never be as good as Getz. (For a glimpse into the sacrifice and gifts inherent in reaching such altitudes in music, watch the 2014 film Whiplash.) A 2007 New York Times piece said:
“[Greenspan] was a sideman, rather than a soloist. Among his fellow musicians he became known as the band’s resident intellectual, the clarinetist who could also fill out his bandmates’ income tax forms for them. Between sets, when they disappeared into the green room—‘which would quickly fill with the smell of tobacco and pot,’ Mr. Greenspan recalls—he read books about business.”
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