Harry Connick, Jr. - Chanson du Vieux Carre

Chanson du Vieux Carre
January 2007
  1. Someday You'll Be Sorry
  2. Panama
  3. Ash Wednesday
  4. Chanson du Vieux Carré
  5. Bourbon Street Parade
  6. Petite Fleur
  7. Fidgety Feet
  8. Luscious
  9. New Orleans
  10. I Still Get Jealous
  11. That's A Plenty
  12. Mardi Gras In New Orleans
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For those like Harry Connick, Jr. who grew up in New Orleans, the Crescent City has always been a constant state of mind. The love that he and the members of his band share for this birthplace of so much of America’s musical culture has defined all of their performances, but never more so than on Chanson du Vieux Carre, the third disc in the Marsalis Music label’s series Connick on Piano.

The album will be released in October on the same day as Columbia Records issues Connick’s vocal tribute Oh My NOLA. A portion of Connick’s royalties of both discs will benefit New Orleans Habitat Musicians’ Village, the project conceived by Connick and Marsalis Music founder Branford Marsalis to provide affordable housing in the city’s Upper Ninth Ward for displaced musicians and other families.

Chanson du Vieux Carre stands out among current New Orleans tributes in that it was conceived and executed well before Hurricane Katrina. As Connick explains, “I have been writing original music about New Orleans and arranging traditional New Orleans music on my tour bus over a period of years, to hone my skills and to give the band new music to play.” In May 2003, with his band assembled in Los Angeles’ legendary Capitol Towers Studio A to record his hit Columbia albums Harry for the Holidays and Only You, Connick felt that the time was right to record his New Orleans music. “I always thought it would be a good idea to record after we got off the road, when everyone’s chops would be strong and we’d be able to fly thought the charts – and that’s what happened,” he says with justifiable pride. “The band sounded great.”

The plan had been to include the results in the Connick on Piano series after earlier volumes had allowed the omnivorously talented Connick to display his instrumental prowess in more intimate settings, a goal realized with his previous Marsalis Music releases Other Hours, by Connick’s quartet, and Occasion, Connick’s duo encounter with Branford Marsalis. Now the time has come for Chanson du Vieux Carre, a collection that makes several particularly salient points regarding Connick and the talented players who comprise his immediate musical family.

Where his previous Marsalis Music discs have generated a growing appreciation for Connick the pianist and composer, Chanson du Vieux Carre goes a step further by placing a spotlight on his talents as an arranger. Among the clearest indications of Connick’s orchestral mastery are the playful backgrounds that support the trumpet solo on “Bourbon Street Parade,” the sultry echoes of Ellington on “Luscious” and the dark urgency and drama as the band casually mixes moods and time signatures on “Ash Wednesday”; but then every track has a moment where the writing turns the familiar into the unexpected. Add three new Connick compositions and some strong piano (in solo on such tracks as “Someday You’ll Be Sorry” and “New Orleans,” and in support throughout), and you get one of the most complete showcases to date for the leader.

Yet Connick is only one potent presence among many in his Big Band. As fans of his vocal albums and live performances do not need to be told, the big band that Connick leads includes several major talents, including trumpeters Leroy Jones, Roger Ingram and Mark Mullins, trombonists Lucien Barbarin and Craig Klein, and saxophonists Ned Goold, Jimmy Greene, Dave Schumacher and Jerry Weldon. Chanson du Vieux Carre provides significant space for their input, and without exception they rise to the occasion, whether instrumentally or (in the case of Jones on “Bourbon Street Parade” and Barbarin on “Luscious”) vocally.

To an even greater extent, Chanson du Vieux Carre allows the Big Band to shine as a unit. A rarity in both the amount of touring it has logged and the consistency of its personnel, Connick’s ensemble is as close as a contemporary big band gets to the road-tested esprit de corps that characterized the legendary orchestras of the ‘30s and ‘40s. The rhythm section of Connick, bassist Neal Caine and drummer Arthur Latin swings in all gears; the other sections glow or purr as the situation warrants, with a special nod to the astonishing lead trumpet of Ingram; and the common purpose shared by all of the players ensured that even the newer arrangements in the program required no more than two takes.

It all adds up to an uncommon group of artists with an uncommon affection for the music of New Orleans. Be they natives (Connick, Barbarin, Jones, Klein, Mullins), more recent residents (Caine), or homeboys by association like Goold and Weldon, every member of the Big Band displays a feeling for the city that is essential to everything that Harry Connick, Jr. is about. Chanson du Vieux Carre is a Crescent City love letter, recorded two years before the deluge yet never timelier than it is today.

Other Releases by Harry Connick, Jr.

Music From The Happy Elf
Harry Connick, Jr.
2011


The Harry Connick, Jr. Trio
Harry Connick, Jr. piano
Neal Caine bass
Arthur Latin drums

Celebrate the holidays with Harry Connic, Jr.’s “The Happy Elf” and start a new tradition! Read more »

Harry and Branford: A Duo Occasion
Branford Marsalis
2005

Pianist Harry Connick, Jr. and saxophonist Branford Marsalis are old friends who regularly
surprise the music world with their eclectic tastes and ability to deliver in a variety of idioms.
When the pair got together to record Occasion from Marsalis Music’s Connick on Piano
series, the setting may have been unexpected, but the results were typically challenging and
satisfying. After the positive response that Occasion received upon its spring 2005 release,
further encounters by the pair were inevitable. One particularly memorable set, from the Read more »

Occasion
Harry Connick, Jr.
2005

Occasion, the second volume of Marsalis Music’s Connick on Piano series, presents Harry Connick, Jr. in one of the most challenging and spontaneous settings of his career – a series of duos with saxophonist and label head Branford Marsalis. The new disc, recorded over a March weekend in North Carolina, will be released June 14, 2005. Read more »

Other Hours
Harry Connick, Jr.
2003

 

marsalis.11spot.com/checkout/cart/add?product=6998&qty=1

Not content to rest on his continuing successes as a singer, a pianist, a composer of original songs, an arranger and a screen actor, Harry has seized the opportunity in recent years to write an entire Broadway score, patent new computer technology for the performance of orchestral music, and create the character Leo on the popular NBC-TV series “Will and Grace.” Harry Connick, Jr. may be one of the most multi-talented artists in the world of contemporary entertainment. Read more »