Low Down: Junk, Jazz, and Other Fairy Tales from Childhood (Hardcover)

by A. J. Albany (Author) "I often thought my father was born of music - some wayward melody that took the form of a man..." (more)
Key Phrases: Charlie Parker, Hollywood Boulevard, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The daughter of famed jazz pianist Joe Albany recounts a childhood marked by music, drugs and thwarted potential in this impressive debut. Albany's hipster pedigree is impeccable: her mother was fresh off an affair with Beat poet Allen Ginsberg ("I gather Mom was Ginsberg's last heterosexual liaison") when she married musician Joe Albany, a troubled heroin addict credited as one of the inventors of bebop. Amy Jo was born early in the doomed marriage; by the time she was five, her mother had disappeared and the preschooler was living with her father in the St. Francis, a colorful flophouse in Hollywood ("like Eloise without the frills"). Young Albany became a fixture in the L.A. jazz scene, accompanying her father to the smoky bars and clubs where he performed. In addition to jazz legends such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, Albany's girlhood was populated with a nearly unbelievable cast of one-eyed junkies, dwarfs and the inevitable hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold; each of these down-and-out figures is nuanced character rather than a cliche. Thanks to her judicious use of humor, the book is truly affecting rather than maudlin, even in its most tragic moments. Albany employs an episodic structure that allows her the freedom to record events and memories in a way that seems true to her fragmented, tumultuous childhood. Though slim, Albany's well-wrought memoir contains emotional and lyrical volumes.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The daughter of jazz pianist Joe Albany, a key figure in the birth of bebop, exposes the seamy world of Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s while spinning a pathetic tale of growing up as the child of addicted parents. When A. J. is five her mother deserts, and father and daughter take up residence in the St. Francis Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. In poignant staccato chapters, the author evokes vivid portraits of her fellow residents, a "vast assortment of misfits" including a baby-sitter "who did a lot of mescaline," a cook-companion who was a transvestite and an addict himself, and her friend LaPrez, son of a "strung-out hooker" who disappears after his mother overdoses. Joe's friendships with Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, and Sinatra are all part of the mix, but so is Dalton, the porno moviemaker who introduces A. J. to speed. A. J. is seduced by an uncle at 12, attempts suicide at 14, and eventually gives up trying to save her father, who dies alone in 1988. Lots of drugs and loneliness, some jazz: the author has perceptively written what she knows. Deborah Donovan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; 1 edition (April 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582343330
• ISBN-13: 978-1582343334
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,547,604 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb and wonderfully grown-up book, February 16, 2004

By A Customer

"Low Down" has plenty of moments that are tragic, horrifying, horrifyingly funny. A lesser person and a lesser writer could've written it in a continuous (and unbearable) whine. Yet, thanks to A. J. Albany's pitch-perfect, mean, clean, uncompromising writing, it's instead an example of how the best art transforms the most sordid reality into something else entirely - something beautiful, pure.

Every time I revisit this book, and I've done so several times, I'm amazed by just how lovely Albany has made her story of wasted talent (the parents) and a ruined childhood (the author's), without letting her text get bogged down by the very natural emotions of self-pity, fury, sorrow. They're there, but they're not all that's there. There's the joy of music played right, the joy of love - however twisted - expressed fully, the joy the author clearly feels at getting it all down, and getting it down right - even righteously.

This book deserves a thousand times more attention than it's gotten.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The complex life of a troubled jazz artist through the soul of a loving daughter who never stopped loving!, May 27, 2009

By	M. Moss (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Low Down: Junk, Jazz, and Other Fairy Tales from Childhood (Tin House) (Paperback)

I love this book! It is lyrical! Loving! Honest! Superbly creative! A thoughtfully written and living painting of lives, personalities, time, and places, that reverberates the eternal work in progress many sensitive jazz artists and their closest relations struggle through but courageously endure to try and keep their loves and dreams in a state of beauty! A. J. Albany is a beautiful person and this is her gift to the world!!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't Put It Down, December 4, 2008

By	J. Burnett - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Low Down: Junk, Jazz, and Other Fairy Tales from Childhood (Tin House) (Paperback)

This book was recommended to me when I was complaining about my jazz musician parents, their unbalanced, often drug addicted parenting, growing up in L.A. around musical celebrity, and some of the more tragic effects it had on my life. After reading AJ Albany's intense and intelligently written recollections of the insanity that surrounded her as a child of a jazz musician, in brief, I'll just shut up about my childhood that now seems like living in Disneyland by comparison. AJ Albany has been able to distance herself from what must be some extremely painful memories to create magnificent, finely descriptive and detailed accounts of her childhood days, surviving in the seedy streets of Hollywood with it's all too colorful characters. Her memoirs will be interesting to anyone who grew up around Los Angeles in the late 60's-early 70's and certainly for anyone who is a fan of classic jazz. AJ Albany has forever earned the title as given to her by her father, Joe Albany, "Be-bop Princess," and she is a brilliant writer. This book was a page-turner and when I reached the end, I wanted more.