This brief biographical piece is written by a family member of Joe Cosco.

She writes:

" As you know, Joe (nickname Butchie, I think because his father was a butcher) was born on June 30, 1916 in Albany, NY. Both his parents were immigrants from Italy. Although from the same province, Cantazario, Anna Scalise and Joe Cosco Sr. came to this country at different times and were married here in the USA. Both his parents names are in the ledgers (etched in stone) at Ellis Island. Joe's birthplace was the third floor of a tenement building on the corner of Madison and Grand Street, kitty corner from St. Anthony's Church, of which he was a lifelong member.

The only information I've heard regarding his childhood...is that he was a bit of a ham. One of the Lanese brothers did tell me (that) my father, a kid himself at the time, once saved a drowning boy from a water hole that used to be in Lincoln Park. He was a fantastic swimmer and even he had one coach claim he was good enough for the Olympics. As a young man he swam in the Hudson River.

For a time, my father was the sole support of his mother and three sisters. He washed dishes after school at the Ten Eyck Hotel, where he was able to listen to the musicians in the ballroom. ..

He enlisted in the Navy the day after Pearl Harbor and was in the Navy Reserve his entire life as a Master Chef. Because of poor eyesight, during the war, he was stationed on a ship just outside Cuba and did not have to engage in combat. During that time he taught swimming and swimming with rifles to Navy personnel.

He married Evelyn Angeloni, an Army WAC on August25, 1945 (pictured on this page)...They lived on Ash Grove Place and later moved to 128 Grand Street, to a house that once belonged to a relative of Phillip Schuyler...

He learned to play bass at Phillip Schuyler High School."

An article in an Albany newspaper (KN or TU?) in 1941 told of the interesting friendship between Albany's Joe Cosco and Louis Prima.

They met in New York City when Cosco was a bouncer at the Onyx nightclub on 52nd Street in New York.

As a friendship grew, Prima invited Cosco over the Famous Door nightclub. He told Cosco to bring his bass. Cosco didn't have the courage.

But a few years later, when Louis Prima played a gig at the Burden Lake Casino on Burden Lake, they met again. Prima extended an invitation once again. This time Cosco jumped at the chance.

A dream realized.

This photo is from the family of Joe Cosco. We believe, with a fairly high degree of certainty (but not 100% certainty) that this is a photo of Cosco with the Louis Prima Orchestra at a Burden Lake concert mentioned above. Circa August 1941.