André Persiany was a Paris pianist and arranger in the swing and mainstream tradition. He played with American musicians passing through Paris in the late 1940s and 1950s, spent the second half of the 1950s and the 1960s based in New York, and from 1970 to 1988 was the resident pianist at the Paris club Le Furstenberg. He was born André Paul Stéphane Persiani in Paris on November 19, 1927, and many of his records and references print the name as Persiani. His father taught him violin and piano as a child, and by 1945 he had formed an ensemble of his own.

In 1947 he was a member of the Be Bop Minstrels, the Paris modern-jazz group of Hubert Fol and Raymond Fol, and he appears on Swing label records of 1947 and 1948 by the Minstrels and by a quintet led by the baritone saxophonist Michel de Villers. Late in 1948 he recorded the single "Paris-Monte-Carlo" and "Bagdad Boogie" for Swing with the pianist Bernard Peiffer. Through the late 1940s and the 1950s he worked with American players who came to France, among them the trumpeter Buck Clayton, the clarinetist Mezz Mezzrow, the trumpeter Bill Coleman, the vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, on whose Paris recordings of 1954 Discogs lists him, and the soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, whom AllMusic says he backed. Among French musicians he worked with Eddie Bernard, Tony Proteau, Michel Attenoux, Raymond Fonsèque and the tenor saxophonist Guy Lafitte.

The Lafitte partnership produced his best-known French records. A Pathé album of 1954 is billed to Persiany and his orchestra with Lafitte as featured soloist, and Les Classiques du Jazz (Columbia FP 1074, 1956), a quartet of Lafitte, Persiany, the bassist Paul Rovère and the drummer Teddy Martin recorded in Paris on October 20 and December 2, 1955, took the Grand Prix du Disque of the Académie Charles-Cros for 1956-57. A second volume followed in 1958. He also received the Jazz Hot prize in 1956. Columbia issued Joue Count Basie under his name in 1958, an orchestra record of Count Basie repertoire in which Discogs credits musicians including Lafitte and Attenoux.

In the mid-1950s he moved to New York and played at Birdland, and he worked extensively with the trumpeter Jonah Jones; AllMusic dates his joining of Jones's quartet to 1961 and has him staying for most of the decade. He led an orchestra on the Columbia album Impressions of New York, recorded in New York between July 31 and August 3, 1956, with Budd Johnson, Lawrence Brown, Tyree Glenn, Ernie Royal, Eddie Barefield and Arvell Shaw. Johnson, the trumpeter Taft Jordan and the trombonist Vic Dickenson were part of the International Jazz Group, for which he also played and arranged, and on July 17, 1957 he recorded the EP Persiany Meets the Vice Pres in New York with the tenor saxophonist Paul Quinichette, the bassist Wendell Marshall and the drummer Ed Thigpen. In 1962 he won a record prize at the Mar del Plata festival in Argentina.

He returned to Paris in 1969. From 1970 to 1988 he was the pianist at Le Furstenberg, the club on the rue de Buci, and during these years he recorded often for Black & Blue. The Real Me, made in Bordeaux on February 8, 1970 with the bassist Roland Lobligeois and the drummer Oliver Jackson, was issued in 1976. A live trio record, Every Night at Furstemberg (Open), was recorded at the club in June 1977 with Lobligeois and the drummer Roger Paraboschi, and Fiddle No End (Black & Blue, 1978) is a quartet record with Lobligeois, Jackson, the bassist and singer Major Holley and the violinist André Barthélemy, who plays five violin parts at once through overdubbing, to arrangements by Persiany. He also played in these years with visiting Americans: Cat Anderson, Milt Buckner, Eddie Chamblee, Arnett Cobb, Al Grey, Budd Johnson and Charlie Shavers. With Milt Buckner, who plays piano on both, he made Requiem pour un chat (recorded in Paris on March 21, 1973, with Lobligeois and Paraboschi) and Pianistically Yours (Black & Blue, issued in 1982 from sessions of 1975 and 1976).

His double bassist son Stéphane Persiani joined him in the trio of Out of This World (Black & Blue, recorded July 26, 1985), and later releases include the CD Skyliner (Djaz, 1994), which gathers sessions of 1976 and 1985, and Starlight Souvenirs (Night & Day, 1996). Beside his playing he was an arranger, and Le Monde named Henri Salvador and Boris Vian among the singers for whom he wrote. His memoir, Ballets de crabes : mémoires d'un musicien de jazz français, was published by L'Harmattan in 2014. He passed away in Paris on January 2, 2004.

Persiany was a swing-era pianist. AllMusic describes a strong rhythmic pulse and a preference for the swing approach to jazz piano, notes that he admired the style of Milt Buckner and took on some of its qualities, and lists his years of activity as the 1940s to the 1980s. His records bear that out: Basie repertoire in Joue Count Basie, the New Orleans-rooted standards and blues of Les Classiques du Jazz (among them "Basin Street Blues" and "Struttin' With Some Barbecue"), a swing orchestra in New York, and the trio and quartet sets of his Le Furstenberg years. Discogs files his records under swing, bop and cool jazz, and Every Night at Furstemberg under hard bop and modal; the common thread is a melodic, rhythm-section-driven style that made him a reliable partner for American soloists. AllMusic adds that late in his career he became more interested in composition.