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| 1. | Sweet Georgia Brown
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| 2. | Tin Roof Blues
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| 3. | Wolverine Blues
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| 4. | Jazz Me Blues
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| 5. | Doctor Jazz
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| 6. | Muskrat Ramble
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| 7. | Lazy River
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| 8. | Joe Avery's Place
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| 9. | Way Down Yonder in New Orleans
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Jazz / Vocal
Traditional Pop
Swing
Recorded November 4 & 11, 1978, New Orleans
Harry Connick Jr. - Vocals, Piano
Jim Duggan - Trombone
Liston Johnson - Clarinet
Freddie Kohlman - Drums
Walter Payton - Bass
Tedd Riley - Trumpet
With Harry Connick, Jr., the numbers tell the tale -- five Gold and three Platinum albums, two Grammys, scores of sold-out concerts and millions of enraptured fans worldwide. Now, it's time to add two new numbers to the tally, ELEVEN and 25, Harry's newest Columbia albums. Though released simultaneously, these recordings couldn't be more different. 25 is a moving new collection of jazz and pop standards performed on solo piano, while ELEVEN is a rare set of traditional New Orleans classics from an ensemble of New Orleans jazz masters, including Connick at the tender age of... you guessed it, 11.
It has always been Connick's way to delight audiences with a wide variety of musical moods and styles, and the two new albums certainly do that. 25 is his latest opus, recorded in October 1992. Connick, who wrote his own extensive liner notes with detailed deCopyright
107tions of each song, says, "This is about as raw as it gets. This is what I sound like when I'm all alone, away from the lights and the crowds. This is what I sound like when I play whatever comes to mind. This is what I sound like at 25."
Connick's musical maturity has long impressed fans and critics, but he's made even greater strides in 25. Sitting alone at a piano, Connick's unadorned artistic vision comes through. From the album's first track, an intimate rendition of Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust," with Connick's mentor Ellis Marsalis on piano, it's clear 25 is Connick's labor of love for the great American song. The syncopated instrumental, "Music, Maestro, Please," displays all of Connick's brazen wit, while his swinging version of "On The Street Where You Live," with its stride rhythm pattern and dense chording, typifies Connick's increasingly complex musical language.
The muted ragtime piece "After You've Gone" is followed by a lavish pounding interpretation of Johnny Mercer's "I'm An Old Cowhand (From The Rio Grande)" done in pure N'Orleans style. "Moment's Notice," by John Coltrane, emerges as a dark, disjointed yet strangely beautiful instrumental, while "Tangerine" is given a wispy Argentine spin. The Gospel-flavored "Didn't He Ramble" is one of Connick's best vocal performances, while his subdued camel-paced piano playing sheds new light on Duke Ellington's "Caravan."
For a twist, Connick plays organ and is joined by New Orleans blues singer Johnny Adams on Johnny Mercer's "Lazybones," in a delightfully dry vocal "competition" between the two. And, in a heartfelt salute to both his own past and the traditional New Orleans jazz he loves so much, Connick performs the frenzied rag "Muskrat Ramble," which also appears on ELEVEN.
Next comes the Arlen-Mercer ballad, "This Time The Dream's On Me," one of the most elegantly understated performances ever from Harry Connick, Jr. The album ends with a sleek trio performance of "On The Atchison, Topeka, And The Santa Fe," on which Harry is joined by the great Ray Brown on bass and Ned Goold on tenor sax. It's an invigorating conclusion to an album from a musician growing more confident and able by the year.
ELEVEN was originally recorded in New Orleans in November 1978. The album saw limited release at the time and has remained largely unavailable until today. Although only a child at the time, Connick had by then won over the hard-boiled jazz community with his precocious abilities and single-minded passion for the music. The album itself consists of nine jazz classics performed by a sextet of sterling players, including trumpeter Teddy Riley, clarinetist Liston Johnson, trombonist Jim Duggan, bassist Walter Payton, and drummer Freddie Kohlman, all towering figures in native New Orleans jazz for decades. Connick's refreshing piano accompaniment blends seamlessly with the masters' seasoned polish.
Included are such immortals as "Sweet Georgia Brown," "Tin Roof Blues," "Wolverine Blues," "Doctor Jazz," "Lazy River," and "Muskrat Ramble." Great songwriters like Bix Beiderbecke, Kid Ory, and "Jelly Roll" Morton are represented here, all giants of traditional jazz and idols of Connick from his earliest days. As Paul Lentz says in his original liner notes, "Young Harry seems to be having a ball with his musical efforts, and that, to me, has always been one of the great strengths of the New Orleans traditional style…that he is but 11 speaks highly of both his present accomplishments and what should be a glowing future."
As it turned out, Connick's future glowed far brighter that Mr. Lentz might have imagined back in 1978.
But with all the sound and fury surrounding Connick, his tremendous career, his fame and his fortune, it's a double pleasure to hear the introspective mature artist at work all alone on 25, and to discover his budding brilliance unfolding on ELEVEN. No matter what or when, Harry Connick, Jr. finds a way to reach you.
Harry Connick, Jr.
Active Decades: '80s, '90s and '00s
Born: Sep 11, 1967 in New Orleans, LA
Genre: Vocal
Styles: Jazz-Funk, Swing, Contemporary Pop/Rock, Traditional Pop
With very few exceptions, the career of Harry Connick, Jr., can be divided in half -- his first two albums encompassed straight-ahead New Orleans jazz and stride piano while his later career (which paralleled his rising celebrity status) alternated between more contemporary New Orleans music and pop vocals with a debt to Frank Sinatra. Born in New Orleans on September 11, 1967, Connick grew up the son of two lawyers who owned a record store. After beginning on keyboards at the age of three, he first performed publicly at six and recorded with a local jazz band at ten. Connick attended the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts and studied with Ellis Marsalis and James Booker. A move to New York to study at Hunter College and the Manhattan School of Music gave him the opportunity to look up a Columbia Records executive who had asked to see him, and Connick's self-titled album debut -- a set of mostly unaccompanied standards -- appeared in 1987. Jazz critics praised Connick's maturity and engaging style as well as his extended stays at New York hot spots during the year. His second album, named for his age in 1988, was the first to feature him on vocals.
Already well known within jazz circles, Connick entered the American consciousness with the soundtrack to 1989's popular film When Harry Met Sally. Director Rob Reiner had asked Connick to compose a soundtrack, and he recorded several warm standards ("It Had to Be You," "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," "Don't Get Around Much Anymore") with a big-band backing. A world tour followed, and When Harry Met Sally eventually reached double-platinum status. With Connick a major celebrity, he diverged into an acting career, playing a tail gunner in 1990's Memphis Belle. That same year, he released two albums simultaneously: one, We Are in Love, was another vocal outing with similar standards as had appeared on When Harry Met Sally, while Lofty's Roach Souffle was all-instrumental. (Of course, the vocal album performed much better in the pop charts, hitting double platinum, while the instrumentals worked better with jazz audiences.) Connick toured again, this time with a big band, and recorded the group on 1991's Blue Light, Red Light. Though his celebrity decreased slightly during the mid-'90s, Connick's albums continued to reach platinum status, including 1992's 25, a 1993 Christmas album, and 1994's She. Connick continued his acting work with a starring role in 1995's Copycat (where he played a serial killer) and married actress Jill Goodacre. In 1996, he had a brief role in the year's biggest blockbuster, Independence Day, but his album Star Turtle failed to connect with pop audiences. Come by Me, a return to big-band sounds, followed in 1999. In the new millennium, Connick cycled between albums exploring his jazz roots and those with songbook standards.
Interestingly, post-2001 Connick moved between two labels with albums getting released on both Columbia Records and saxophonist Branford Marsalis' Marsalis Music label. Among these were the big-band album Only You, featuring popular music from the '50s and '60s, and the more intimate releases Other Hours: Connick on Piano, Vol. 1 (2003) and Occasion: Connick on Piano, Vol. 2 (2005), which focused on Connick's instrumental abilities. As well as releasing albums, Connick continued to act, appearing regularly on the television sitcom Will & Grace before it ended in 2006. Ever devoted to his hometown, Connick was also heavily involved in the support and rebuilding of New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina. In early September 2005, he organized the benefit telethon A Concert for Hurricane Relief on NBC to raise money for and draw attention to the beleaguered residents of New Orleans. Afterward, he worked closely with Habitat for Humanity in helping victims of Katrina. In 2007, Connick once again expressed his deep love for his hometown with the release of his New Orleans tribute album, Oh, My Nola, on Columbia Records.
---John Bush, All Music Guide |
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