Harry Connick, Jr.

Joseph Harry Fowler Connick, Jr. (born September 11, 1967) is an American singer, big-band leader/conductor, pianist, actor, and composer. He has sold over 25 million albums worldwide. Connick is ranked among the top 60 best-selling male artists in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America, with 16 million in certified sales. He has seven top-20 US albums, and ten number-one US jazz albums, earning more number-one albums than any other artist in the US jazz chart history.

Connick's best selling album in the United States is his 1993 Christmas album When My Heart Finds Christmas, which also is one of the best selling Christmas albums in the United States. His highest charting album, is his 2004 release Only You which reached #5 in the U.S. and #6 in Britain. He has won three Grammy awards and two Emmy Awards. He played Grace's husband Dr. Leo Markus on the TV sitcom Will & Grace from 2002 to 2006.
Connick began his acting career as a tail gunner in the World War II film Memphis Belle in 1990. He played a serial killer in Copycat in 1995, before being cast as jet fighter pilot in the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day. Connick's first role as a leading man was in 1998's Hope Floats with Sandra Bullock. His first thriller film since Copycat came in 2007, when he played the violent ex-husband in Bug, before two romantic comedies, 2007's P.S. I Love You, and the leading man in New in Town with Renée Zellweger in 2009.
Harry Connick, Jr., was born and reared in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father, Joseph Harry Fowler Connick, Sr., was the district attorney of Orleans Parish from 1973–2003, and his mother, the former Anita Livingston (May 22, 1926 — July 1981), was a lawyer and judge in New Orleans and, later, a Louisiana Supreme Court justice. His parents also owned a record store. Connick, Jr.'s father is Irish American, and his mother, who died from ovarian cancer, was Jewish. Connick, Jr. has a sister, Suzanna; the siblings were raised in the Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans.

Connick is the first cousin of Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick and State Representative Patrick Connick of Harvey, also of Jefferson Parish.
Connick's musical talents soon came to the fore when he started learning the keyboards at the age of three, played publicly at age five and recorded with a local jazz band at ten.
When Connick, Jr., was nine years old, he performed the Piano Concerto No. 3 Opus 37 of Beethoven with the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra (now the Louisiana Philharmonic) and later played a duet with Eubie Blake at the Royal Orleans Esplanade Lounge in New Orleans. The song was "I'm Just Wild About Harry". This was recorded for a Japanese documentary called Jazz Around the World. The clip was also shown in a Bravo special, called Worlds of Harry Connick, Jr. in 1999. His musical talents were developed at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and under the tutelage of Ellis Marsalis and James Booker.

Connick attended Jesuit High School, Isidore Newman School, Lakeview School, and the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, all in New Orleans. Following an unsuccessful attempt to study jazz academically, and having given recitals in the classical and jazz piano programs at Loyola University, Connick moved to the 92nd Street YMHA in New York City to study at Hunter College and the prestigious Manhattan School of Music, where a Columbia Records executive Sr. V.P. of A&R, Dr. George Butler persuaded him to sign with that label. His first record for the label, Harry Connick Jr., was a mainly instrumental album of standards. He soon acquired a reputation in jazz because of extended stays at high-profile New York venues. His next album, 20, featured his vocals and added to this reputation.



Harry Connick, Jr. (Nueva Orleans, 11 de septiembre de 1967) es un cantante y pianista estadounidense. Su repertorio y estilo se aproxima al jazz por la vía del swing y de la canción popular estadounidense. Se trata de un moderno crooner, en la estela de Frank Sinatra. La carrera de Connick comenzó con dos discos de clara orientación jazzística (aunque desde un punto de vista muy tradicional), para luego centrarse en un estilo más pop.

Connick es hijo de dos abogados propietarios de una tienda de discos. Su padre, Harry Connick, Sr., de ascendencia irlandesa-católica fue fiscal de distrito de Nueva Orleans desde 1977 hasta 2003. Su madre, una neoyorquina de ascendencia judía fue Jueza de la Corte Suprema de Luisiana. Tras comenzar probando con el teclado a los tres años de edad, su primera actuación pública se produjo a los seis años, y grabó con una banda de jazz local a los diez. Recibió clases en el New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts y estudió con Ellis Marsalis y James Booker. Una estancia en Nueva York para estudiar en el Hunter College en la Manhattan School of Music le dieron la oportunidad de contactar con la compañía Columbia, para finalmente publicar su primer disco en 1987, un conjunto de estándares tocados a piano sin acompañamiento que fue elogiado por la crítica. Su segundo disco, en 1988, sería el primero en que cantaría.

Ya conocido dentro de los círculos jazzísticos, Harry Connick, Jr. entró de lleno en el ámbito de la popularidad con su banda sonora de la película de 1989 When Harry Met Sally..., llena de estándares románticos ("It Had to Be You", "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off", "Don't Get Around Much Anymore") interpretados con el apoyo de una orquesta. Connick llegó a actuar como actor en alguna película en 1990. Ese mismo año, realizó dos discos simultáneamente, cada uno orientado a públicos distintos: uno, We Are in Love, otro disco de estándares orientado al ámbito pop; el otro, Lofty's Roach Souffle, completamente instrumental, orientado al mundo jazzístico. En 1991 graba con una orquesta Blue Light, Red Light. Aunque su popolaridad decreció a mediados de los noventa, sus discos continuaron siendo bien vendidos. También prosiguió con su carrera de actor, con un papel protagonista en Copycat (1995) y se casó con la actriz Jill Goodacre. Tras algunos discos que no alcanzaron los niveles de éxito deseados, con el nuevo milenio Connick ha intentado recuperar sus raíces jazzísticas.