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When Harry Connick Jr. was 10 years old, he tried to book a gig at Carnegie Hall. He’d been playing piano since he was three, prodigiously since five or six, and his mum was so proud she told everyone she’d see him perform there one day. When she was diagnosed with cancer, he made the call.
“They’re like, ‘Well, this is the box office, we can’t help you’,” he says, flashing that million-dollar smile. “I told my mum, ‘I tried to play there’, and she thought that was nice, but anyway. She died when I was 13. And to this day, I’ve never been to Carnegie Hall. I wanted to save it for a special occasion.”
One of the reasons he’s here in Melbourne this Friday afternoon, wandering alone and unrecognised into a Collingwood cafe in black t-shirt and jeans, grey wind-jacket and unsculpted stubble, is to prepare for that occasion.
He’s been rehearsing a challenging new composition, he explains, with Orchestra Victoria. On May 22 next year, on what would have been Anita Frances Livingston’s 100th birthday, he’ll unveil a 50-minute dedication to her called Babe Elaboratio at Carnegie Hall.
“She was the youngest of six, so they called her Babe,” Connick says. “She had a great command of the English language, but she was not a fan of ‘big two-dollar words’. She liked to speak very simply, very clearly. So instead of calling it a rhapsody or a concerto or a symphony, I wanted a better name.”
Babe, a lawyer and a judge in the family’s hometown of New Orleans, was a bit of a dark horse. Harry and his sister never knew her age. Even her grave marker says only “Babe” and her date of death in 1981. No full name, no birthdate. “Which is a really strong choice for your tombstone,” he says.
“I had to basically elaborate, using memories as signposts. The etymology of elaborate is labour: to work to build something. And my mother, I think, would have found it cheeky to call it Elaboratio.” He stirs his lemon and honey tea. “It’s very personal to me.”
Connick’s labours with Orchestra Victoria will soundtrack a documentary he’s co-directing with his oldest daughter, Georgia, a graduate of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School who also made a couple of his recent videos. His younger daughters Kate (born Sarah; she played Fallon in Neighbours) and Charlotte are also involved.
Harry Connick Jr with his wife Jill Goodacre and their daughters, from left, Georgia, Charlotte and Sarah, as he entered the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2019.Credit: Getty Images
They all live in Australia: three more reasons he’s this far from his American home weeks ahead of his climactic Jazz At the Bowl show for the Melbourne International Jazz Festival. He also has a production company based here, he says, raving about the “incredible talent” on tap.
“Nothing’s really hard,” he says when asked about having all three daughters move to the far side of the world. “Like, losing my mum was hard. Having our girls live in Australia and have them loving this adventure? No. They’re 29, 28 and 23. My wife might say differently, but it’s not hard for me.”
Connick’s love affair with Australia is no secret. His breakthrough When Harry Met Sally soundtrack sold platinum here in ’89, leading into a decade of packed theatres, festival stages and some kind of freakish crossover between the jazz songbook and pop idol mania.
Harry Connick Jr on the set of The Piano with fellow judge Andrea Lam, centre, and host Amanda Keller.Credit: ABC
The connection has matured through dozens of albums and return tours, and a smooth embrace of TV, not least his Australian Idol stint in 2023. Most recently, he joined concert maestro Andrea Lam on ABC TV’s The Piano: a feel-good travelogue that put amateur pianists and their stories on show in public places.
“I liked the idea of taking the musicianship out of the instrument and focusing on the common humanity,” he says. “It wasn’t about ‘This is what you need to do to become a better pianist’. It was about what the instrument meant to those people.
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“It made me remember that no matter what level you think you are as a musician, people are not hearing it like that. A lot of these pianists who came in didn’t have a clue what they were doing in terms of playing the instrument, which is beautiful. It was a lens through which I could experience the piano in a different way.”
The bond between music and community is key to one of his most enduring projects. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Connick and saxophonist Branford Marsalis linked with Habitat for Humanity to build Musicians’ Village in New Orleans: 80 new homes, 80 per cent of them occupied by musicians and their families.
In the middle of that is the Ellis Marsalis Centre for Music, named for Branford’s late father, one of Connick’s early mentors. “It’s turned into this incredible community centre with the most beautiful recording studio in New Orleans,” he says.
Harry Connick Jr headlines Jazz at the Bowl on October 25.
“Both of us are still board members, and we meet four times a year, and we still go all over the world raising money, playing. It would be nice to have a big endowment … but the only way to maintain that is to be very, very involved. So I mean, that’s the rest of my life.”
Connick’s own home with his wife, actress Jill Goodacre, is in Connecticut these days. He made his last two albums there, playing every instrument from drums to brass and layering vocal harmonies. Alone With My Faith is a gospel album conceived during COVID. As lockdown wore on, he added Make It Merry to his stash of Christmas records.
All that and his recent album of Cole Porter interpretations, True Love, are on the table for his Jazz At The Bowl show, but he’s not a set list kind of guy. “If I write them, it’s just to let the [rest of the entourage] know I might play this or that, but it changes. It’s always totally different,” he says.
“I sang at this past Super Bowl,” he recalls, “and as I was walking across the field with one of my daughters, she said, ‘Are you excited?’ I said, ‘No, I’ll be excited when I get on stage!’ I mean, I really subscribe to being in the moment. So in terms of getting ready, when the time comes, I’ll walk on stage and we’ll do the show.”
It’s hard to picture him being quite so cool when the limo pulls up to the stage door of Carnegie Hall for the world premiere of Babe Elaboratio in May. He shakes his head.
“People say, ‘You’re going to be an emotional wreck’, but see, I don’t believe that the future exists. I stay here, and when that present happens, I’ll feel what I feel, you know? All that matters to me right now is that we’re having a conversation in this cool place. I’m a strong subscriber to that.”
Harry Connick Jr. headlines Jazz At The Bowl at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl on October 25 with Bill Frisell Trio, Emma Donovan and more, for the Melbourne International Jazz Festival. https://www.melbournejazz.com/
