The Great American Songbook and the music of America has a special place with Harry Connick Jr. He gives it a place for imagination, and playfulness, some seduction, and romances its spirit in every phrase he offers it and expresses it with. The music itself is like an outstretched hand. It is inviting and is at once as nurturing as it is open to nurturing by the artist who takes it into their soul.
Soul music is more than a genre: It is a signature of place and definition. In the creative places of the artist, it gets life. The music of anywhere becomes a songbook when it is respectfully held up and exposed as the heart and voice of so much that makes its where it is from-ness a hearable thing. Harry Connick Jr. exposes that heart and voice with his voice and his care to let the character of a song lead.
The artistry of the Harry Connick Jr. songbook is the music he sings. It’s that imagination, and the playfulness, the eye twinkle in the sound — some seduction and the romancing of the spirit. Take the outstretched hand. It’s an invitation, his invitation, into the life of the music of his own kind of open songbook.