Joe Albany

{{Infobox musical artist

| name = Joe Albany

| image =

| background = non_vocal_instrumentalist

| birth_name = Joseph Albani

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1924|01|24}}

| birth_place = Atlantic City, New Jersey, U.S.

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1988|01|12|1924|01|24}}

| death_place = New York City

| genre = Jazz

| occupation = Musician

| instrument = Piano

| years_active =

| label =

| past_member_of = {{ubl|Benny Carter|Charlie Parker|Miles Davis}}

}}

Joe Albany (born Joseph Albani; January 24, 1924 – January 12, 1988) was an American modern jazz pianist who played bebop with Charlie Parker as well as being a leader on his own recordings.{{cite book|last=Barbera|first=André|title=The new Grove dictionary of jazz, vol. 1|year=2002|publisher=Grove's Dictionaries Inc.|location=New York|isbn=1561592846|edition=2nd|editor=Barry Kernfeld|pages=24–45|chapter=Albany, Joe}}{{Cite book| last = Cook| first = Richard| year = 2005| title = Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia| url = https://archive.org/details/richardcooksjazz00cook| url-access = registration| publisher = Penguin Books| location = London| isbn = 0-141-00646-3| pages = [https://archive.org/details/richardcooksjazz00cook/page/6 6]}}

Life and career

Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Albany studied piano as a child and, by 1943, was working on the West Coast in Benny Carter's orchestra.Feather, Leonard & Gitler, Ira (2007). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, p. 9. In 1946, Lester Young recorded with Albany as his pianist, for Aladdin Records.{{Discogs release|id=5135973|name= The Complete Aladdin Recordings Of Lester Young |type=album}} Also that year, he played at least once with Parker and then 20-year-old Miles Davis.A recording from a live set at the Final Club in Los Angeles from May 1946 was released as Yardbird in Lotus Land in 1976 on Spotlight Records in the UK. Cf. [http://www.jazzdisco.org/charlie-parker/discography/#460301 Charlie Parker discography] on Jazzdisco.org. and {{Discogs release|id=4994427|name= Yardbird in Lotus Land |type=album}} He continued for a few years afterward, and in 1957 recorded an album for Riverside with an unusual trio line-up with saxophonist Warne Marsh and Bob Whitlock on bass, omitting a drummer. Despite that, most of the 1950s and 1960s saw him battling a heroin addiction, or living in seclusion in Europe. He also had several unsuccessful marriages in this period. He returned to jazz in the 1970s and played on more than ten albums. He died of respiratory failure and cardiac arrest in New York City at the age of 63.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/16/obituaries/joe-albany-63-dies-master-of-jazz-piano.html |title=Joe Albany, 63, Dies; Master of Jazz Piano |newspaper=The New York Times |date=16 January 1988}}

Albany was the focus of a 1980 documentary titled, Joe Albany... A Jazz Life. His daughter Amy-Jo wrote a memoir about her father called Low Down: Junk, Jazz, and Other Fairy Tales from Childhood.{{cite book |title=Low Down: Junk, Jazz, and Other Fairy Tales from Childhood |last=Albany |first=A. J. |year=2003 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1582343334}} The book was adapted for the screen and released in 2014 as the biopic Low Down.{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/movies/low-down-on-growing-up-with-joe-albany.html?_r=0 |title=A Daughter's View of Dad, the Jazz Pianist and Addict |first=Nicolas |last=Rapold |newspaper=The New York Times |page=C8 |date=23 October 2014}} Joe was also the biological father to Benjamin David Goldberg, who was adopted by another family shortly after being born. Benjamin David was also a musician, who studied percussion at Juilliard, played for Broadway shows and was in the US Army Band.