Chanson du Vieux Carre - Harry Connick Jr.
As a Sinatra-molded swinger, Harry Connick, Jr. may have had some of his thunder stolen by young star Michael Buble. But with his raved-about performance on Broadway in Pajama Game and his continuing development as a jazz pianist, he’s doing quite nicely, thank you. Chanson du Vieux Carre is one of two new simultaneously released big band tributes to his hometown of New Orleans by him. Released on Marsalis Music, it is a largely instrumental big band session divided between originals and classics that shows off his writing and arranging skills while featuring his longtime trumpeter Leroy Jones and trombonist Lucien Barbarin on incidental vocals. (Connick is in full vocal mode on Oh, My Nola, released by his longtime “A” label, Columbia.) Though his surprisingly few turns at the piano are mostly Basie-like in their edgy economy, his coloristic, sectional approach on tunes such as his own “Luscious” and Hoagy Carmichael’s “New Orleans” evokes Duke Ellington. Named for the storied old section of the French Quarter, the album takes a few songs to get going, but once it does, it has plenty of spark and swagger–and heart. The ghostlike background voicings on Sidney Bechet’s “Petite Fleur” seem to embody spirits of New Orleans past while it’s always great to hear Connick honor his onetime mentor, Professor Longhair, on Longhair’s bumptious “Mardis Gras in New Orleans.” –Lloyd Sachs
