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Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/385222
Harry Connick Jr. improvises a creative life in Holly wood, in the recording studio, and on a new season of American Idol… and finds tranquility on the beaches of Cape Cod. f you found yourself sipping a cocktail in the New Orleans club Maison Bourbon on a lazy Saturday after noon in t he ea rly '70s, you might have cast your eyes on a 6 -year-old lad, with a shock of chest- nut hair, playing—no, jamming—on the piano. You would have seen this child amaze the crowd, griz- zled music vetera ns a nd slinky wa it resses a like, with complex harmonies and chord arrangements erupting in some sort of freaky, fabulous reincar- nation of legendary jazz cat Thelonious Monk. But it wa s just Ha r r y being Ha r r y. T he young prodig y show ing of f his st uf f in it s la r va l st age would go on to become Harry Connick Jr.—pianist, bandleader, crooner, actor, and poster child for the jazz-saturated intelligentsia of his stomping ground, New Orleans. He has won three Grammy Awards a nd t wo E m mys, ha s been nom inated for Tony Awards as both a composer and an actor, and, fol- lowing a stagnant season marked by bitterness and backbiting, returned the joy to American Idol when he joined the show as a judge last season. Not only can Connick play, he can play well with others. Especially with his family. Cape Cod—where he's had a home with wife and former Victoria's Secret supermodel Jill Goodacre and their three daughters for more than a decade now—is his sanctuary. It is the place where he stops being a celebrity and becomes simply Harry the dad. "Family comes first," Connick says. "If you look at American Idol, last year it was two days a week. That's not that much. I f ly out on a Tuesday, and I'd be home Thursday night." Connick got his first taste of New England at 16, when he spent a summer studying classical piano at Tanglewood in the Berkshires. "It was an amazing place," he recalls, "the best place I knew of, and still know of, in terms of summer programs for young musicians trying to improve their craft." Summers on t he Cape, t hough, a re f illed w it h "not hing in particular," he says. "We do everything from going to t he mov ies, to going to t he beach, to going to dinner, to staying home and watching T V." Here he re-embraces the New Orleans – style "'s'all good" chillin' that is his birthright. "We do all kinds of stuff. It doesn't really matter." by larry getlen | photogr aphy by palma kolansky 100 bostoncommon-magazine.com