Mellowing with age

Harry Connick is well-known to movie audiences but his first love is jazz.

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IF YOU'RE NOT quite sure whether Harry Connick Jnr is a musician or actor, that's because he's a chameleon.

Connick's name is synonymous with the jazz scene of the late 80s and 1990s, when his Sinatra-like vocals and talent with the keyboard won him consecutive Grammy Awards, one for the soundtrack of 1989 hit romcom When Harry Met Sally and the other for double platinum-selling album We Are in Love.

But his lazy Bourbon St drawl and leading-man good looks also didn't escape the notice of film executives, who in 1990 cast him as part of the bomber crew in World War II flick Memphis Belle. It was the beginning of an acting career that has spanned nearly 20 years and seen him play everything from a serial killer in Copycat, to a bartender with possible Tourette's in P.S. I Love You.

His first love, always and forever, has been music, especially jazz and vintage pop. He's put out 24 albums, and sold 25 million copies worldwide.

Connick recently spent a day cooped up in a five-star Auckland hotel suite – where he could gaze out at a view of the concrete jungle, and think about how the ceaseless rain and steel-grey skies remind him of home.

Connick is promoting album No24, Your Songs, a compilation of golden hits from artists such as Nat King Cole, Elvis Presley, Tony Bennett and Billy Joel. It's been released in time for the Christmas stocking-filler list.

"I haven't really slept that much, we've just been doing press the whole time. I'll be tired later," says the 42-year-old, while nursing a large paper cup of coffee that he made himself from the hotel's espresso machine.

Dressed in the obligatory uniform of the American tourist – blue jeans, T-shirt, light jacket and baseball hat – Connick little resembles his glossy, airbrushed press photos. He looks older, a tad more ordinary. In a crowd, he'd disappear. If it weren't for those famous blue eyes, the chiselled jaw, the confidence in his voice, he could be any handsome middle-aged stranger at the bus stop.

You wouldn't think Connick's the sort to invite controversy, but when he went to Australia after New Zealand he spoke out against a performance by a Jackson Five tribute group that appeared on the reunion edition of TV variety show, Hey Hey It's Saturday, on which he was a guest judge. The brouhaha that ensued caused his management to cancel a planned shopping mall appearance in Sydney amid concerns for his safety, according to Channel Nine website.

But to his fans, it's this tendency to shoot straight from the hip which explains Connick's eternal appeal. He represents the best of old and new – classic jazz music, fused with modern values.

"When I was really young, probably about five, my parents used to bring me down to the French quarter in New Orleans. I would listen to the musicians play and the most common song they would play was `When The Saints Go Marching In'. That's our football team, that's the New Orleans anthem and that was the first song I played on the piano, so it brings back a lot of memories."

Connick started picking out tunes on the piano at three, but shies away from labels such as child prodigy. "I've had some bad days. I had some really intense teachers. I came from a generation where your teachers really get on you. Short from hitting you, they really get in your head, telling you `you're wasting your time, you don't have any talent, you should do something else for a living'. I'd cry, you know, but I never thought `this isn't for me'."

But far from decrying his former tutors, who included blues musician James Booker and legendary Louisiana jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis Jr, Connick credits them with instilling in him a good work ethic, and showing him what it took to get to the top of the scrap heap.

"[My teachers] showed me what you have to do, the hours you have to put in for my kind of music. Some people don't need that. Some musicians don't practise, and they're phenomenal at what they do. For what I do, you just have to put in the hours and you gotta practise."

The one thing that can pull Connick away from music is his family – he's married to former Victoria's Secret model Jill Goodacre and has three daughters, aged 13, 12 and seven.

"Knowing that I have a wife, that there's one person out there who loves me like that and then having three people that we made that love and need you even more as they grow...it makes everything else insignificant.

"I love my girls, man. I don't think of it in terms of them being girls. I think of them in terms of their personalities and I don't treat them differently. We're very physical, we wrestle and they're extremely athletic. Plus, as a boy, I was a terrible athlete and because of my identification with my mum, I probably related more to the feminine side. I was sensitive as a kid, as opposed to being a rough'n'tumble boy."

Connick says he never wearies of fame. "I never get tired of this. You know how many of these interviews I've done in my life? How many countries and hotel rooms I've sat in and talked about myself? Talking about do you prefer music or movies, what kind of underwear I wear, boxers or briefs? You know how many times I've sat in these interviews, yet I wake up every day and thank God I can do it. I love what I do and I love talking about it, man. If I didn't, I'd stay home."

One headline that's never been written is The Trouble with Harry. There are no stories about crazy hotel room parties, secret affairs or any drug or alcohol use to besmirch his squeaky-clean reputation. Instead, news reports talk about his Broadway debut in 2000, his turn as Grace's husband, Leo Adler, on Will & Grace, and his part in creating the Musicians' Village, a scheme that will provide musicians with low-cost housing in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Seriously, is there nothing that worries him or makes him angry? How about bad music?

"Look, 20 years ago I would've listed 100 people. But now, what's the point? Let's take... OK, name somebody, gimme somebody."

Britney Spears?

"All right, I could say she lip-syncs and it's all about the wardrobe, not the music. Then I could turn around and say `you know what, Harry Connick sucks, he's got a small vocal range and his left hand is weak, he leaves a lot to be desired in his arrangement'. But look at it this way – Britney Spears is from Louisiana, I'm from Lousiana... go get 'em, home girl."

So he's mellowed out over the years?

"Completely. I just don't get angry any more. Nothing you could tell me or write about me, nothing you could imply personally or professionally would upset me. I just don't have the time to be anything but positive. I used to get real angry, I used to think it was my way or the highway but it ain't like that. It comes with age. It takes time and children, getting married... but it's part of growing up, I think."

Your Songs is out now through Sony.

- © Fairfax NZ News