Harry Connick Jr.

Harry Connick, Jr. brought New Orleans stride piano, jazz phrasing, and classic pop standards back to wide audiences through his fluid keyboard technique and rich baritone voice, an accomplishment that also lifted his profile well outside the music world. Versatile across multiple performance fields, he collected Grammy and Emmy honors while earning Tony nominations for his stage roles. A prodigy who first drew notice at age ten, Connick had matured into a compelling jazz figure by his late teens. Shaped by the examples of Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, he received broad praise for a series of Columbia Records releases, notably the soundtrack to the 1989 romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally, which earned him his initial Grammy. Building on that foundation, he issued numerous Top 20 jazz projects, among them the 1990 Grammy-winning We Are in Love, the 2002 Grammy-winning Songs I Heard, and the 2004 Billboard 200 number-five entry Only You; together these recordings helped shape the neo-crooner style and cleared a path for later artists including Michael Bublé, Jamie Cullum, and Norah Jones. Concurrently he moved into screen work, guesting on Will & Grace and appearing in Memphis Belle and Independence Day. Broadway recognition followed, highlighted by a Tony nomination for his lead performance in the 2006 revival of The Pajama Game. Although standards remained central, as shown on 2009’s Your Songs, he ventured into pop, R&B, gospel, and funk on releases such as 2015’s That Would Be Me and the intimate, Grammy-nominated 2021 set Alone with My Faith. Additional projects included his portrayal of Daddy Warbucks in NBC’s Annie Live! and the 2022 holiday collection Make It Merry.

Born in New Orleans on September 11, 1967, Connick was raised by two attorneys who ran a record shop. He began playing keyboards at three, performed publicly at six, and recorded with a local jazz ensemble at ten. He attended the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, where he studied under Ellis Marsalis and James Booker. Relocating to New York for courses at Hunter College and the Manhattan School of Music, he met a Columbia Records executive who had expressed interest, resulting in his 1987 self-titled debut album, a collection focused on largely solo standards. Jazz writers noted his poised delivery and captivating approach, as well as his repeated residencies at New York venues that year. His second album, titled after his age in 1988, marked the first time he appeared as a vocalist.

Already familiar to jazz listeners, Connick reached a national audience via the soundtrack to the 1989 hit film When Harry Met Sally. Director Rob Reiner commissioned the music, and Connick recorded several warm standards—“It Had to Be You,” “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore”—with big-band support. A worldwide tour ensued, and When Harry Met Sally ultimately achieved double-platinum certification. Now a prominent public figure, he branched into acting with a tail-gunner role in 1990’s Memphis Belle. That same year he issued two albums at once: the vocal set We Are in Love, continuing the standards approach of the earlier soundtrack, and the purely instrumental Lofty’s Roach Souffle. Both reached the jazz-chart Top Five, while We Are in Love climbed to number 22 on the Billboard 200.

Connick toured once more with a large ensemble, captured on 1991’s Blue Light, Red Light, which again led the jazz charts and entered the Billboard 200 Top 20. Through the mid-1990s his releases maintained platinum sales, including 1992’s 25, a 1993 Christmas album, and 1994’s She. Further acting opportunities arrived, among them the lead in 1995’s Copycat as a serial killer and a part in the year’s top-grossing Independence Day. In 1996 he explored Stevie Wonder-inflected funk and R&B on Star Turtle, then returned to jazz-centered material with the orchestral ballads of 1997’s To See You and the big-band arrangements of 1999’s Come by Me, both of which topped the jazz charts.

Entering the new century, Connick alternated between jazz-rooted projects and songbook collections. After 2001 he divided output between Columbia and Branford Marsalis’s Marsalis Music label, issuing the big-band album Only You, drawn from 1950s and 1960s pop, alongside the more personal instrumental recordings Other Hours: Connick on Piano, Vol. 1 (2003) and Occasion: Connick on Piano, Vol. 2 (2005). Television work continued with regular appearances on Will & Grace until its 2006 conclusion. Deeply tied to his birthplace, he devoted substantial effort to New Orleans recovery after Hurricane Katrina. In early September 2005 he organized the NBC benefit telethon A Concert for Hurricane Relief to aid residents, later partnering closely with Habitat for Humanity on relief projects. He also returned to Broadway in a 2006 production of The Pajama Game opposite Kelli O’Hara, earning a Tony nomination.

In 2007 Connick released the New Orleans tribute Oh, My Nola on Columbia, followed soon after by the similarly themed Chanson du Vieux Carré. The next year brought his third holiday album, What a Night! A Christmas Album. He revisited American popular-song and contemporary standards on 2009’s Your Songs. In 2011, for PBS’s Great Performances, he issued the live album and DVD In Concert on Broadway, recorded with his big band and orchestra at the Neil Simon Theater. That year he also starred in a Broadway revival of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.

Connick returned in 2013 with the funk-focused Smokey Mary, timed to the twentieth anniversary of the Krewe of Orpheus, the Mardi Gras super krewe he co-founded in 1993; the track “Smokey Mary Boogie Woogie Choo Choo Train” paid homage to the krewe’s signature float. Also in 2013 he released the eclectic original-song collection Every Man Should Know.

In 2014 he joined the judging panel for the thirteenth season of American Idol and remained through the program’s final season, which aired from 2015 to 2016. He prepared a daytime variety series, Harry, which premiered in September 2016. Amid these commitments he issued the pop-oriented That Would Be Me in fall 2015, then reconvened his big band for 2019’s True Love: A Celebration of Cole Porter and headlined the Broadway production Harry Connick, Jr. — A Celebration of Cole Porter. In March 2021 he delivered the Grammy-nominated Alone with My Faith, a gospel-tinged album recorded solo during COVID-19 lockdown. Later that year he portrayed Daddy Warbucks in NBC’s Annie Live!, and the following December he released the holiday album Make It Merry while launching his 2022 Holiday Celebration Tour.