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I wouldn’t say I’m a huge Harry Connick Jr fan.
I mean, I like him alright, but for some reason, I have seen him in concert more than five times.
His album “20” came out when he was 20 years old in 1988, which was the year I was in 8th grade. My best friend was a pianist and she, therefore, we, were obsessed with all things jazz. Handsome young men who played and sang Frank Sinatra’s Imagination and were just a few years older than us, were just our type. That’s when I started listening to Harry.
I supposed I’ve just been following him so long, I was bound to end up at a few of his concerts.
There was a time in the late 90’s, early oughts’ when I often found myself at a Harry concert. I was invited along or there were free tickets but most often, it was because he was playing at the Hollywood Bowl.
For those of you who do not know, when you live in Los Angeles, Hollywood Bowl is a summer event. It is truly one of my favorite places in the world. I’d hit a couple of concerts there a year. I really didn’t care what was playing. Back in the day, the tickets in the very of the amphitheater were only $1. You could take a picnic dinner, take the subway or bus out there and whoever was sitting next to you would become your best friend. Or by a block of tickets and invite your regular friends.
I remember once going to see the Nigerian musician, Femi Kuti. No, I had never heard of him in my life but it was a great time. My husband had to work late, so I invited a neighbor in our building. We shared cherries and watermelon with the people next to us and danced till we sweated with people we’d never see again.
Nearly every year, the Bowl hosted Bugs Bunny on Broadway in which they would play Bugs Bunny cartoons on a big screen while the philharmonic played along. This is how we all discovered most of our classical music education came from Bugs Bunny cartoons.
Once I worked at an insurance office and one of our clients invited me along. I was around 22 and he and all his friends were in their late 20’s with PhDs in STEM subjects but loved Bugs Bunny. I had a blast.
One time, a woman I knew who ran an organization offered me 50 tickets to a Hollywood Bowl event. She knew I could find enough people to go with. I do not even remember who played that night but I have pictures of all 50 of us, family, friends, neighbors and coworkers riding the Metro to the Bowl that night.
But back to Harry.
The last time I saw Harry Connick Jr in concert at the Hollywood Bowl, I had good tickets. I could actually see him, not just watch the big screens on the side of the stage to understand what was going on. My husband was given box tickets by his work. Our seats were up near the front and had a little table where we could lay out our food like people, instead balancing it on our laps like animals, we did when we sat in the regular seats. As usual we brought out huge picnic, wine, charceuturie, the works.
Somewhere in the middle of the concert, it became apparent that Harry was a little lit. Now I have read that Harry does not drink. I have also read that others have noticed this sort of behavior at his concert. All I know is that the man seemed intoxicated, fried, plastered, wasted and a little loopy.
Harry liked to interact with the audience a little bit between numbers. He noticed many of us had picnic dinners and commented how nice they looked and how he was getting a little hungry. He started to ask people what they had in their picnics. Of course, we, the audience could only hear what Harry said, not the other people as they did not have mics.
In the front row, one woman was going through the contents of her basket for Harry, and right when a picture of her flashed on the big screen wearing a low cut dress, showing off her ample bosoms, Harry happened to say on the mic “are those peaches!?”
The result was comical.
There was a little back and forth between Harry and the Victoria Secret model, which was not his wife. Since I could only hear half of it, here is what I surmised.
“That don’t look like a peach!” Harry says in his Louisiana accent, which gathered more laughter from the audience.
“It’s a doughnut peach.”
“A doughnut peach!?” Harry says like a wide eyed yokle. “Do they taste like doughnuts?”
“No, they look like one. “
“Well, I never had me a doughnut peach.”
The woman offers one to the stage.
“Really?” Harry asks one of the security guys in the pit to bring the doughnut peach to him, the audience claps, while Harry proceeds to eat the peach on stage, not quite David Hasselhoff eating a burger on the floor, but sloppy, juicy, sticky, wiping juice all over his hands and face. The stagehands roll in an upright piano to center stage right as Harry tosses the pit into the pit.
You could tell we were all a bit nervous now. Harry wasn’t going to play with the orchestra like the rest of the concert, he was going to play all by himself on that upright.
He pushed the rolling stool out of the way, playing the first few notes standing up. At first, he was timid, playing the bass line as if he was getting used to the instrument. Then lightly, ever so gently, he played recognizable melody on the high notes.
I immediately recognized the tune. It is one of my top ten compositions of all time, Duke Ellington’s Caravan. I held my breath. Was he going to mess up one of the best jazz standards ever?
This arrangement was similar to the one on his album 25 but in true jazz style, he was improvising. Each time the melody circled back, he grew in confidence and volume. He began to use more of the keyboard. He played with the notes creating a call and response between the top and bottom of the register. The notes began to roll over and on top of each other, until he beat the piano itself, the top and sides as a percussion instrument, slapping the wood with one hand as he played with the other. And this is when we realized we’d been holding our breath. Not because we were afraid, he would mess up but because he was brilliant! Harry completely transformed that familiar tune into something magnificent. And he had held the attention of 17,000 people with one piano and a doughnut in the middle of an empty stage.
I am uncertain if the drunkenness was a bit. Just a coy ploy to set us up. Or maybe the guy just plays best drunk. But after that night he wasn’t just a handsome guy who played a little jazz.
Ok, fine, that night I became a big Harry Connick Jr fan.
My book Undaunted Joy: The Revolutionary Act of Cultivating Delight published with Zondervan is now available.
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I am currently booking speaking engagements and workshops into next summer! Let me know if you’d like to get me on the calendar.
Upcoming Events
September 21, Tacoma at Mc Duff’s at Highlands Golf Course 3-5pm
September 24, Seattle St Mark’s Cathedral 6:45-8:15pm (link forthcoming)
September