Joe Albany
Joseph "Joe" Albany ( * January 24, 1924 in Atlantic City as Joseph Albani, New Jersey; † January 11, 1988 in New York City ) was an American jazz pianist of bebop. He played with Charlie Parker and Lester Young.
Life and work
The Italian-American Joe Albany learned to play the piano as a child, initially played harmonica, moved to Los Angeles and played with Leo Watson in 1941 in the orchestra of Benny Carter in 1943 and briefly with Georgie Auld and Boyd Raeburn. After New York Albany came in 1944, where he worked with Max Kaminsky, but went to the West Coast, where he played in 1946 with Charlie Parker ( Yardbird in Lotus Land, Spotlite ), Howard McGhee, Miles Davis. Was created in 1945 for the Aladdin label recordings with Lester Young 1945 After Albany worked as a freelance musician, mostly in the vicinity of Los Angeles.; In 1957 he recorded an album for Riverside on ( The Right Combination) with Warne Marsh. At times he was musically inactive drug problems kept him in the 1950s and 1960s repeatedly from the jazz scene away. He lived mostly withdrawn in Europe. Mid-1960s, he played briefly with Charles Mingus (1963). Only in the 1970s, he returned and took on some boards, including Ralph Peña, Joe Venuti, Art Pepper (The Garden State Jam Sessions, 1975) and several under his own name. He has also performed in trio with Art Davis, Bob Whitlock, Frank Butler and Roy Haynes; In 1980 his last album Portrait of an Artist.
His daughter Amy Jo Albany wrote about him the memory book Low Down: Junk, Jazz, and Other Fairy Tales from Childhood ( Bloomsbury, 2003). The director Jeff Preiss turned based on Amy Albany's book of the same name in 2010 biopic; the role played by Joe Albany Mark Ruffalo. Carole Langer turned 1980 on him the documentation Joe Albany ... a Jazz Life, in which he reported mercilessly about his drug addiction and his failed marriages.
Auswahldiskographie
- The Right Combination ( OJC, 1955) with Warne Marsh
- Two's A Company ( Steeplechase, 1974) with Niels- Henning Oersted Pedersen
- Live In Paris ( Fresh Sound Records, 1977) with Alby Cullaz and Aldo Romano
- Bird Lives ( Storyville, 1979) with Art Davis, Roy Haynes