ProJazz.net

AllMusic Review by Scott Yanow:
This mostly ballad-oriented trio set with bassist George Duvivier and drummer Charlie Persip was pianist Joe Albany’s final recording. Albany, whose career (especially on records) did not really get going until his final decade, is in generally good form on such tunes as “Autumn In New York,” “They Say It’s Wonderful” and “Confirmation.” The album concludes with a brief interview that sums up some aspects of his episodic life (http://www.allmusic.com/album/portrait-of-an-artist-mw0000318356).

Track listing:

A1. Autumn In New York 00:00
A2. Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out To Dry 06:34
A3. For The Little Guy 11:24
B1. The Say It’s Wonderful 18:08
B2. Too Late Now 23:16
B3. Confirmation 28:49
B4. Ruby, My Dear 34:30
B5. A Conversation With Joe Albany 38:16

Personnel:

George Duvivier – bass
Charlie Persip – drums
Al Gafa – guitar
Joe Albany – piano

Recorded at CBS Recording Studios, N.Y. 1982

***

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.

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. In 1946 he at least once played with Parker and then 20-year-old Miles Davis. 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.

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. The book was adapted for the screen and released in 2014 as the biopic Low Down (Wikipedia).