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photo by Corey Walter
Amy Albany,
author of
Low
Down: jazz, junk and other fairy tales from childhood
____________________________
Look up pianist Joe Albany in the All Music Guide to Jazz and you
will discover that during his career he associated with the likes of Benny
Carter, Lester Young, Joe Venuti, Warne Marsh, and even Charlie Parker, and
that eight of the albums recorded under his name in the United States and
Europe between 1957 and 1982 are still in print. In the short biography
accompanying Albany's critical discography, the writer Scott Yanow touches
briefly on his troubled life, his drug abuse, and his many wives, and concludes
that given these circumstances, "...it is miraculous that he lived to almost
reach 64."
The later years of Albany's life were precious to his daughter Amy -- raised
in a seamy Hollywood hotel by her hipster father after mother Sheila abandoned
her at the age of six. Amy reaches into her childhood and pulls out
a magical tale called Low Down: jazz, junk and other fairy tales from
childhood, in which she reflects on her imperfect world filled with
down-on-their-luck Hollywood characters, junked-out musicians, late-night
Naugahyde joints, and an unpredicatable, brilliant father. Low Down
is a story consisting of equal parts despair and hope, recklessness and
loyalty, hate and love -- communicated in a near-poetic improvisation her
old man could have composed a tender, punchy tune to.
Read on in the All Music Guide to Jazz and Yanow writes, "Joe Albany's
real importance is as one of the early bop pianists." Maybe musically. But
for Amy Albany, his real importance was as a grounding and loving connecting
point to her impassioned, little-girl soul.
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Amy joins Paul Hallaman in a November 11, 2003 Jerry Jazz Musician
interview. A book excerpt precedes the conversation.
Page Chapters
Book Excerpt
Interview
Photo Album
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Amy Albany and father Joe in Los Angeles, 1977
A Book Excerpt
Is That All There Is?
As a child, I tried to adhere to the same simple philosophy
that many children have. I did my best to find love in some form, even when
it appeared to be absent, and I tried to seek out beauty, though it wasn't
often present in any traditional sense. I found that it was always best to
keep my thoughts private and attempted to avoid situations that had a potential
for conflict. This last credo would prove particularly challenging. It was
never wise to provoke or even engage in conversation with my dad after he
had fixed. If you left him alone and buried your nose in a book, he would
weather his high with only a few random outbursts that he usually directed
at himself. Often his ranting would manifest itself in the form of a one-sided
battle with an invisible foe I always assumed was the Devil. "You're not
God - I know who you are," he'd yell, pointing at the air before him. My
book would begin to slip out of my hands from the amount of sweat I'd shed
over the possibility that Satan was in the room with us.
He'd then go over to the piano and bang out some dissonant
chords repeatedly, stopping at times to tell me how much he loved me or how
much he hated the cold fucking world. Unfortunately, when we both lived with
my grandmother, as we occasionally did, she was not able to ignore these
drug interludes. Dad would emerge from the bedroom with a dull and distant,
totally unfamiliar expression. As much as I warned her against it, Gram felt
compelled to start in on him, tsk-tsking with her dark, agonized eyes and
sad gray head. "Look at yourself. My God, my God." I'd tug furiously on her
sleeve, beseeching her silence.
"Fuck your God, and fuck you," he'd slur, his mouth set
in an ugly scowl. Things would escalate rapidly, and he'd say stuff that
I understood to be totally contrary to his true nature. When straight, he
was the quintessential loving, worshipful Italian son.
One night, Gram went for a full frontal assault. Dad
had been peeling an apple and was still holding the knife. "Why don't you
just kill me?" she wailed at him, beating her chest.
"Maybe I should," Dad answered, taking two steps toward
her, waving the knife. That was it. I jumped in front of Gram, horrified,
and prepared to die.
Gram grabbed my arm and swung me around to face her.
"Amy, don't you dare speak to your father that way!" What was this?
I thought, totally mystified. I looked back and forth between the two of
them, and they looked at me as though I'd had an inappropriate fit in the
middle of a church picnic.
Some kids would be much better off without the added
confusion of an adult point of view. It destroys the purity of their world.
Perhaps Gram and Dad found some bizarre contentment in these exchanges. I
walked into the bedroom and put Peggy Lee's
"Is That All There Is?
 " on the record player.
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Joe Albany and daughter Amy, 1962
"I often thought my father was born of music -- some wayward melody that
took the form of a man. He heard music everywhere, in the squeaking
of rusted bedsprings and the buzzing of flies. Dripping faucets were
filled with rhythms to him, as was the irregular flashing of the busted neon
outside our window. Some shook their heads and thought he was a nut,
but I never believed that."
- Amy Albany
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Listen to Joe Albany play
For The Little Guy
____________________________
PH The writer Greil
Marcus wrote about your memoir, Low Down: junk, jazz, and other fairy
tales from childhood: "Albany recreates a landscape of her childhood
where misery is a faraway sound floating above a voice speaking in tones
of affection, terror, rage, love and, most of all, a hipster's defiance."
I would agree that it is quite an amazing read. I appreciate your participation
in this interview.
AA Thank you for inviting me.
PH The book in particular covers your life
with your father, the great jazz pianist Joe Albany. Prior to your birth,
the Albany family moved from New Jersey to California in the forties.
AA Yes. My grandfather wanted to come to
California for work, so they drove out here in a very old car of his. Besides
his interest in moving for work, he wasn't pleased with a relationship my
father was in at the time.
PH The woman he was involved with was referred
to by your grandfather as a "tainted she-devil."
AA That's right. She was a Jewish girl, and
my grandfather had a lot of terrible notions about anyone who wasn't like
him. He was an Italian Catholic and was pretty extreme about wanting to break
that relationship up, which turned out alright in the end because my dad
ended up out here in California. That was a good thing at the time.
PH Your father had been playing as a professional
musician since he was a teenager, first as an accordionist. Soon after he
arrived in Los Angeles, he discovered the Central Avenue jazz scene.
AA Yes, he spent a lot of time there, and
while there he took part in a Lester Young recording, which was of course
a great experience for him. It was also during this time that he met Charlie
Parker.
PH He made numerous trips between New York
and Los Angeles. Why?
AA He was probably doing that to stay one
step ahead of trouble. By going back and forth he was making efforts to avoid
the law. It is interesting because critics would talk about him being either
an East coast or West coast jazz musician. I remember asking him about that
once, and he said he felt more of a kinship with the East coast players and
their sound, although he certainly had friends out here -- Art Pepper and
Chet Baker among them. But he was more partial to the East coast, where he
came from.
| PH You call your mother the "Belle of Salt
Lake City." How did she and your father get together?
AA They met in Los Angeles at a party in
Errol Garner's home, who my father was close friends with. He was just getting
over his second wife having committed suicide, so he wasn't in very good
shape at the time. My mom was a big fan of his. The only recording out at
the time that featured my father on it was The Right Combination,
with the saxophonist Warne Marsh. She absolutely loved that album, and I
remember her telling me that she wore it out. She said it was very exciting
to meet him. They were both very brilliant in their own way but were probably
not a particularly good combination. Both were very troubled, but their being
together was fate.
PH He was a very intelligent person.
AA Yes, he was very well read, and into the
poet Allen Ginsberg. Coincidentally, in a letter to Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg
wrote about meeting a young woman -- my mother, as it turned out -- who was
very much into jazz and literature. He was quite impressed by her, so my
father obviously wasn't the only one interested. He always said she was the
big love of his life. Neither of my parents were on a very good path, and
they wound up dragging each other down into a pretty dreadful addiction scene.
Her addiction was probably more drinking than my dad -- whose thing was drugs
-- but it didn't make for a good combination. |
Mr. and Mrs. Joe Albany, 1960
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"One Sunday, Mom took me to the park, along with two goofballs chased down by a bottle of Ripple. She was perfectly elegant when she passed out. She would fall from grace and pick herself up like a queen fallen off her throne. Halfway through the park, she was facedown in a little stream. My biggest fear was that spiders would attack her, so I tried to pull her out, but I was a skinny kid and it was to no avail. When a man walking by stopped and asked, "Is that your mom, kid? Are you all right?" I decided to simply sit by her trying to look carefree."
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Body And Soul
, (with Warne Marsh) |
PH Your mother left when you were six?
AA Permanently, yes. My dad told me she actually
left a couple of times earlier, but the first time I remember her leaving
was when I was about five or six. She had a lot of potential, and did many
things incredibly well, but she didn't do the mother thing very well. I guess
you can't do well at everything.
Albany picking up Amy at Grant Elementary, 1969
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"To eat Chinese take-out on a pulled out sofa bed, watching Dracula's Daughter on the late show, reading magnificent fortune cookie poetry - "Due to your melodic nature, moonlight never misses an appointment" - chain secured on the door, and Dad by my side: surely heaven was a pale place, strictly old hat, when compared with this bliss."
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PH In the introduction to the book, you
wrote, "If he wasn't in jail or rehab, we were together." What shines through
some of the real darkness in your book is the love you have for your father
-- how much he meant to you, and how the two of you were very cohesive partners.
AA That is true. It was important to me to
communicate that. It's funny, because I got a lot of flack from some of the
critics who reviewed my book. One of the women -- a writer in the Bay area
-- accused me of being a Pollyanna for not taking a stronger stand against
my parents, or for not recognizing what an awful situation I grew up in.
She wanted me to call my folks "bad parents," basically. But, we are all
so complicated, and I think creative people like artists and musicians possess
even more complications than normal. The fact is that my parents were truly
battling demons all their lives, and I give them a lot of credit for doing
the best they could. My father in particular was phenomenal in so many ways,
and I learned so much from him. Sure he was flawed, as everyone is, but in
spite of that he was such a warm, friendly person. You have to learn to take
the bad with the good, and I wouldn't have traded him for an upstanding,
boring father. |
PH Right. Let's face it, while Ward Cleaver
had his merits, he didn't have the melodic genius or creative persona that
your father did.
AA I received so many gifts from just being
near him. It was an honor to grow up around him and to be able to sit by
him and listen to him play. It was an extraordinary experience. All his musical
talent passed over me, unfortunately, but it was wonderful to just be around.
PH Your childhood memories include friendships
with an amazing cast of characters, most of whom you got to know while living
at the Saint Francis Hotel on Hollywood and Western.
AA My memory is a little strange that way.
For me, home is a wide area, so there are completely dark, large spaces where
I don't remember things at all, but there are also vivid snapshots of people
who made indelible impressions on me that I have carried around forever.
These are the people I write about, like Kitty Goldstein, the ex-stripper
who worked at the Pussycat Theater in Hollywood; Mr. Wumplebottom, who was
one of my father's probation officers; and Ralph, the hotel's resident bookie.
But either I remember something very vividly or not at all.
| PH You have quite vivid memories of meeting
Louis Armstrong.
AA Oh yes, that is easy to remember. It was
a fantastic experience. He was larger than life to me, and so incredibly
alive -- almost like an animated person. It was really something for me because
I loved his music so much at the time I met him. And to have had the experience
of meeting him makes his music seem even that much more phenomenal when I
listen to it now.
PH He sang "Once in Love with Amy" to you
and even autographed a picture for you?
AA Yes, that's right. Because my dad was
a musician, there were always other musicians around, many of whom would
play "Once in Love with Amy" for me. And while they were all very special
in their own way, to have Louis Armstrong sing it to me really stood out. |
Amy Albany, 1970
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"Trying to look out for yourself at all of six years old can be a brain-twisting experience. Sometimes I'll walk by a kid now and be able to tell immediately, that's where their life is at. You can recognize it in the hard way they set their face, and in the eyes, at once empty and wise, ready to weep and tell you to fuck off at any time. I look at them and see myself as a kid."
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PH Some of the other characters you have vivid
impressions of, like Koko the clown and Blind Danny are not exactly
heart-warming.
AA Well, those are the things that make vivid
impressions. You learn to take the good with the bad. Perhaps I don't have
the best memories of them, but I tried to get something positive for myself
from them by writing about them. On the surface these characters would
seem negative, but once I dug deep I was able to find some empathy for them
because they lived very hard lives. It was hard to just completely write
them off, and I didn't see them merely as creeps or losers. We all sort of
have to deal with what is handed to us.
PH Yes, not everybody in life is dealt the
same hand…
AA That is why I have trouble with people
who whine about their circumstances. I like to think people can deal with
them. If I was able to deal with what I had to as a child, then others can
also. Maybe I am not as sympathetic in that way as I should be, but everything
is relative, and it is all from your own perspective. This book is my
perspective, which is more extreme than many other people's, I guess.
Charles Bukowski
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John Fante |
PH It is a great story because as a young
child you were surrounded by brilliant musicians who were also brilliantly
flawed. When reading Low Down I couldn't help but compare it to the
writing of people like Charles Bukowski and John Fante, particularly in the
way you describe Los Angeles. The part of Fante that peels back the veneer
protecting Los Angeles comes through in your writing as well. Yes, there
are sunshine and orange trees there, but there is another aspect to it that
his writing -- and yours -- communicates.
AA That is a wonderful compliment. Thank
you. I hope that aspect gets communicated to the reader. I have to say that
I really feel for Los Angeles. I think it has gotten a bad rap because it
is sort of subtle -- you have to look for things. People see it, as you said,
as a place coated in a shiny veneer and shallowness, but it really isn't.
There is so much complexity here, covered in a thousand layers. It is an
absolutely unique place, and I almost feel that it is my duty, as someone
who was born and raised here, to show people as many of these layers as I
can. |
PH The book is divided into sections, "Trio,"
for when it was you and both parents, "Duet," for when it was just you and
your father, and "Solo," for after your father left to go to Europe. Why
did he leave?
AA It was a great opportunity for him. While
jazz began falling out of favor in America, the music and its musicians continued
to be held in high esteem in Europe. He wasn't able to make a living playing
jazz here, but he was there. It was a great experience for him. He cleaned
up his act and really got his head down to playing. By going to Europe, he
was able to get away from a lot of the negative influences and riff-raff
here. It wasn't like that in Europe for him at all -- or if it was, it was
on a much smaller scale.
PH He stayed in Europe for quite some time…
AA Yes, he was in Holland for probably the
longest time, and he was in Denmark and England for a couple of years each.
He also did quite a bit of traveling throughout France, Belgium and Germany.
It seemed like no matter where he went, he could find an audience. One of
the things that always struck him was that jazz had an enthusiastic following
among all age groups in Europe. College students, young people, old people,
men, women -- they all loved jazz. During the time he lived there -- unlike
American culture -- European culture wasn't necessarily divvied up according
to trends or age. So, his art was acknowledged there and consequently he
was very happy in Europe, where he recorded a lot for Steeplechase and other
labels. In a way I wish he would have stayed, but there is always the pull
to come back and try to make it in your own hometown.
PH And while he was there, you were a teenager,
living with your grandmother. It was just the two of you, right?
AA Yes, pretty much. I was trying to grow
up as best I could, and not in a nice part of Hollywood -- not that there
is a nice part of Hollywood. My grandmother was wonderful. I was a
handful for her, so it probably didn't make her life very easy.
PH It seems as if you both did your best given
the circumstances.
AA I am my father's daughter, and I am sure
that was part of the problem.
| PH There is a very poignant chapter in
your book called "No Academic," in which your grandmother receives a letter
from your father, and you read it. Something he wrote was quite hurtful to
you. Can you talk a little about that?
AA My dad had two sides to him. On the one
hand, he was very hip, and on the other he was very traditional. He was raised
as a conservative Italian, and he could pull that side on me at the weirdest
times, and I would think to myself, "How did that come from this hip little
sad musician everyone looks up to?" The letter he wrote to my grandmother
that you refer to included questions about boys. He had previously discovered
that I had lost my virginity, and wrote, "It is my understanding that Amy
is no longer a virgin. While she is certainly no academic, she is my daughter,
and I suppose I must continue to advise her the best I can. I don't want
her to turn into a rotten kid." Well, this was quite shocking to me. I had
no idea where that had come from, and it was very hard to take. It was such
a low blow, particularly his comment about my being a "no academic." That
comment inspired me to become an insatiable reader, and I tried to learn
everything I possibly could in an effort to make him proud of me. I am going
to sound like a cockeyed optimist, but in retrospect that letter may have
done me some good. It was a wakeup call, because I was being lazy and silly,
and it had the effect of stopping me in my tracks and made me realize I had
to change. |
"It wasn't until the sixties, when upstanding Anglo-Saxon teens, the children of cops and politicians, started showing up high for Sunday family supper, that the righteously uptight rushed to fight the dark drug demons. Where, in the midst of this sudden awakening, did an old lifetime user like my father find help? The answer was nowhere. I'd seen it in the faces and heard it in the voices of health care workers everywhere. Dad and others like him were banished to the netherworld of methadone maintenance at best. "It's a young man's world," he'd say with a tired smile. I would hug his huge head, cursing my powerlessness and the futility of comforting words that fell flat and died as soon as they hit the air."
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You Don't Know What Love Is
,
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PH You wrote about friendships you made in
high school, and of your high school experience in the Los Angeles Unified
School District as well.
AA At the time the LA Unified School District
was one of the worst in the whole country, and it may still be. I remember
the schools that I attended as being just horrendous. Maybe I was on the
wrong side of the tracks, although you would think Hollywood High School
would have offered a more quality education besides drama, which didn't interest
me much at the time.
Part of the problem I faced during high school is that I never really wanted
to be a part of the "crowd." I always felt a little out of sorts -- like
an oddball or a loner. I guess that had something to do with my growing up
alone, without siblings, and never really having a sense of conforming to
anyone else's ideas. I was making everything up as I went along, and it continued
that way in high school. And friends can be so unforgiving of those who are
perceived as being a little different. For example, I liked the music of
the thirties, which may as well have been music from another planet to those
who follow the trends of the era they grow up in. Consequently, I felt like
I was from another planet. It didn't make for a good social situation, and
the funny thing is, that didn't particularly bother me. I didn't want this
part of my book to be a long, sad tale about being disliked and shunned in
school, because it was really okay with me. I felt out of place a little
because I didn't want to be part of what the rest of the kids were doing,
but I just thought that these differences were what makes the world go around.
PH Sure, it isn't always easy for those who
listen to Al Jolson while everyone else listens to Led Zeppelin.
AA Perhaps teenagers are more open now than
when I was young, and maybe they are a little more resonant about things.
All I know is that I would not like to be young again and have to relive
that. I am just happy that I am able to appreciate the good parts of my youth.
Sometimes you don't really see that until the years give you some space from
it.
PH You talk about the feelings you have for
your father and a search for an all purifying love that existed in the corner
of a messed up universe as if it were some sort of Quixotic quest…
AA It is something that became very important
for me when I had children of my own. That is hardly an original thought,
but it is really true for me. Understanding who my father was and my feelings
for him is extremely important to me. Maybe that is what everyone feels once
they have children -- a closer connection to and a better understanding of
your parents because of what they went through while raising you. The experience
of raising children crosses all boundaries and everything falls into place,
making all that I went through during my own childhood worthwhile.
____________________________
Photo Album
Descriptions by Amy Albany, as they appear in Low Down
Dad in L.A, 1942 |
Right combo: relaxing during recording of The Right Combination
in engineer Ralph Garretson's living room |
Making music with Warne Marsh (sax), Bob Whitlock (bass), and Stan
Dembowski (drums), 1957 |
Mr. and Mrs. Joe Albany, publicity shot, 1960 |
Father and daughter connecting, 1962 |
Delicate beginnings: me and Mom, 1962 |
A visit to Gram's, 1963 -- the only picture of the four of
us |
The author, 1964 |
Posing in big boots, 1968 |
"High Times" at Grant Elementary, 1969 |
Unhappy girl, 1970 |
Getting down to business, Europe, mid-seventies |
Reunited: Dad back at Gram's for a visit from Europe, 1977 |
Dad, older but happier for a while, around 1979 |
Amy Albany, 2003 |
Low
Down: jazz, junk and other fairy tales from childhood
by
A.J. Albany
About Amy Albany
PH Who was your hero?
DM Up to the age of fourteen, my hero was Atticus Finch. After that it was Philip
Marlowe --
together I suppose they're my ideal man. Anyway, all my heroes are, alas,
ficticious...
Amy (A.J.) Albany lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two children, Charlie and Dylan..
________________________________
Joe Albany products at Amazon.com
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Interview took place on November 11, 2003
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If you enjoyed this interview, you may want to read our interview with Jack Kerouac's musical collaborator David Amram.
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Other
Jerry Jazz Musician interviews
* Book excerpt and photos printed with the permission of the author.
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