Exclusive Trailer: John Hawkes Brings Jazz Cat Joe Albany to the Big Screen in 'Low Down'
Jazz pianist Joe Albany may not be as much a household name as James Brown or Jimi Hendrix, a pair of other music icons getting big-screen biopics this year, but that doesn’t mean his tale is any less riveting. Low Down, which opened up to cheers (and maybe some foot taps) at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, stars John Hawkes (Winter’s Bone, The Sessions) as the ivory-tickling cat who bebopped with Charlie Parker, and you can watch the exclusive trailer for the film above.
Unlike traditional biopics, Jeff Preiss’s film tells Albany’s story not from the perspective of the troubled, drug-abusing artist but from that of his daughter Amy, whose memoir, Low Down: Junk, Jazz, and Other Fairy Tales From Childhood, the film is based on. Playing Amy is Elle Fanning, who is having herself a stellar year following her leading role alongside Angelina Jolie in the box office smash Maleficent and with the films Boxtrolls and Young Ones still to come.
Low Down has some other casting tricks up its sleeve, too, with an aged Glenn Close as Joe’s mother/Amy’s Gram, and a nearly unrecognizable Flea (he of Red Hot Chili Peppers immortality) as the musician Hobbs. And who’s not tickled when Games of Thrones’s Peter Dinklage turns up in anything?
Low Down opens in limited engagement on Oct. 24.
