A.J. Albany Low Down

Annotation

Emmy-nominated Game of Thrones star Lena Headey reads the acclaimed memoir that inspired the film in which she stars. This special movie tie-in edition is now available from Encore for a great value!One day were walking down the street, passing a newsstand, when I stop and pick up a magazine (maybe Life) with Thelonious Monk of the cover. I kiss it, and say, Hi Monk. Dad, combusting with pride, picks me up, looks at me with those beautiful gray-green eyes, and says: From now on, youre not just my baby, youre my ace-one-boon-white-coon. That, he would claim, was the day we forever connected, and became more to each other than everything. So begins Amy Albanys life with her father, the legendary though obscure jazz pianist Joe Albany. Joe played with the likes of Charles Mingus, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, and Dexter Gordon. In red-boothed, booze-drenched Hollywood nightspots, chances were youd find Albanys daughter tucked behind the bar, curled on someones fur coat, while her father played his set. Teddy bears were for other kidsAmy slept with a 78 of Louis Armstrongs Sugar Blues, and later with a photograph of the man himself inscribed To little Amy-Joe, always in love with youPops. Written with gritty honesty, Low Down is Amy Albanys extended improvisation on growing up, wise beyond her years and hip to the unpredictable ways of Old Lady Life at all too early an age, Albany guides us through the dope and deviance of the late 1960s and early 1970s jazz scene in Hollywoods underbelly and beyond. What emerges is a raw and poignant portrait of a young girl trying to survive amongst the outcasts and misfits who guided her life.