Before running the Fed, Alan Greenspan played saxophone in a touring swing band
Long before he steered American interest rates, Alan Greenspan played clarinet and saxophone alongside Stan Getz, studied clarinet at Juilliard and toured with Woody Herman's band. One bandmate, Leonard Garment, later became Richard Nixon's special counsel. Greenspan went on to chair the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006.
Born in Washington Heights, New York, on March 6, 1926, he grew up with his mother in his grandparents' home after his parents divorced. A spot on his lung got him rejected for wartime military service in 1944. He then earned economics degrees at New York University, studied under Arthur Burns at Columbia, and from 1955 ran the consulting firm Townsend-Greenspan for three decades, pausing from 1974 to 1977 to chair Gerald Ford's Council of Economic Advisers.
His doctorate has an odd history. NYU awarded it in 1977, but at his request the dissertation was pulled from the university in 1987, when he took over the Fed. When Barron's obtained a copy in 2008, it found a discussion of soaring house prices and their effect on spending that even foresaw a bursting housing bubble.
Ronald Reagan nominated him to replace Paul Volcker, and the Senate confirmed him on August 11, 1987. Two months later, right after that October's stock market crash, he promised the Fed would supply liquidity, the start of a pattern traders nicknamed the Greenspan put. Reappointed by presidents of both parties, he served the second-longest tenure of any Fed chair, and his public profile grew so large that commentators compared him to a rock star.
His legacy is contested. Many economists argue the Fed's easy money on his watch helped inflate both the dot-com bubble and the housing bubble behind the subprime crisis, which erupted within a year of his departure. Greenspan countered that falling long-term interest rates worldwide, driven by high savings in developing countries, were to blame. He died on June 22, 2026.
Source: Alan Greenspan
