Displaying items by tag: Chris Whitley

Wednesday, 12 August 2015 12:47

Like Fine Wine, Harry Connick Jr is Getting Better with Age

It was a warm, balmy night with no rain for Harry Connick Jr's sold out summer concert at the beautiful and romantic Ravinia Music Festival this year.

Connick played a dynamic two hour set which included all of the favorites you'd expect like songs from his "When Harry Met Sally" soundtrack. Among the many numbers in his very well-rounded set, he played "It Had to be You", "Where or When" and "The Way You looked Tonight" along with several New Orleans' Jazz treats and three new songs from his upcoming album.

Of the three new songs from his much anticipated October release which included “Trying To Matter”, and “I Like It When You Smile”, I enjoyed the adorable ode to his wife of thirty years, Jill Goodacre, “No One Does I Do Like We Do" the most. But his super sexy delivery on “I Like It When You Smile" will be a great hit single as well.

Looking at the handsome, fit 47-year-old Harry Connick Jr., it seems like just yesterday when I first met him and heard him play the piano 27 years ago!

I was living in New York City with my boyfriend, actor Steve Larson, who was a regular on "Third Rock from the Sun". Steve had a job bar tending at The Village Gate, the most revered Jazz Club in New York's Greenwich Village. Throughout its 38 years, the Village Gate featured such musicians as John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey, Woody Shaw, Miles Davis, Vasant Rai, Nina Simone, Herbie Mann, and Aretha Franklin, who made her first New York appearance there.

Every night while Steve was working I would sit at a small table with a five dollar bill on it drinking a glass of coke he kept refilling so that I looked like a patron. I’d watch musician after musician for free. It was a wonderful music education for me, and a full six years before I started my own band in Chicago. One night at the "Open Mic" when the usual crowd of older Jazz musicians would straggle in trying to sign in to get a slot to play, a young man dressed in a baby blue polyester tuxedo from head to toe walked in to play the piano. This was a bold move as kitschy, second hand clothing was not yet the rage back in 1987. Harry was still quite chubby with baby fat and had a few spots on his face. But when he played I remember thinking this kid must be some kind of prodigy - and I was right. His talent was jaw-dropping.

The very young Harry Connick Jr. soon became a regular performer. I would always have a few singles on hand to tip Harry with when he played the open mic nights, and we talked briefly on occasion. I asked and found out he was Jewish on his mother's side and had been studying music seriously since he was five- years-old. Harry once said I "had a brilliant smile” and that he really appreciated seeing me there on open mic nights because he said I seemed to "listen to every note with my whole body". Years later when I saw his successful national debut and that he was marrying a super model, I almost didn't recognize him, so complete was his physical transformation into the thin, handsome, and debonair performer we know him as now. I must have heard hundreds of musicians at The Village Gate during the four years I lived at The Ansonia on Broadway and 73rd from 1987-1991, but Harry Connick Jr. and the amazing guitarist who was also an unknown - Chris Whitley (now deceased) and David Bowie are the only ones I actually got to know and remember.

At the riveting Ravinia concert, Connick Jr. also played the horn in a wonderful, "dueling banjos" type standoff with his crew of some of the best trumpet players alive today which was very impressive. I was unaware that he was a multi-instrumentalist.

After three decades and millions of records sold and numerous Grammy awards Harry Connick Jr. is still going strong with his quality blend of old and new Jazz and Pop. Connick will also be returning to judge on "American Idol' and hopefully we will see him return to acting as well, because I really enjoyed his work in Hope Floats with Sandra Bullock and his run on the hit series, Will and Grace.

"Everything I do is part of my passion," he said, explaining his diverse talents. "I do the things I like to do. It's sort of a bigger version of having more than one hobby. I love to play piano, sing, and act. I love to do all those things."

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