Harry Connick Jr. will be returning to Broadway after four years away. He last made his debut as an actor in The Pajama Game, but will be returning as a musician. Harry Connick Jr. tickets will be available from July 15th to July 26th for 11 limited-engagement performances at the Neil Simon Theatre. The two-week series of concert dates (Harry Connick Jr. in Concert on Broadway) is his first concert series on the Broadway stage.
Harry Connick Jr. is the jazz musician that went from instrumentalist to acclaimed singer to actor to Broadway composer. He began his life on September 11, 1967 in New Orleans as the son of a district attorney. The discovery that he was destined to be a musician came at the age three when he quickly picked up and excelled at playing the keyboard. Soon after, at the age of six, he began to sell tickets as a live act. This was on a minor stage in New Orleans, but he would move to New York after high school and after failing to study jazz academically.
His future lay in the performing of music and not in the study of it. After relocating to the YMCA on 92nd Street in New York City he went to Hunter College and the Manhattan School of Music. It was at the Manhattan School of Music that a record executive from Columbia Records discovered and signed the young musician.
Though he is known as a modern day crooner, his first album, self-titled, was an instrumental. The album featured a number of standards, but soon Harry Connick Jr. began to receive increase recognition as a jazz musician. The next album finally introduced the world to his vocals.
Jazz albums were not alone going to make Harry Connick Jr. a star. It was only after Rob Reiner had him perform a number of songs for When Harry Met Sally (1989) that Connick Jr. became a household name. The movie album went double platinum and he won the Grammy for Best Jazz Male Vocal Performance.
Audiences have come to know Connick Jr.'s face as well as his voice. A year after adding his talent to a hit soundtrack, he made his Hollywood debut as part of the cast for Memphis Belle.
