Columbia Recording Artist, singer and pianist Harry Connick Jr., just barely out of his thirties, has released 24 albums under his own name, which have sold 25 million copies around the world. Although he has recorded various genres of music, from traditional pop to instrumental jazz to funk and blues, he has shown a deep and abiding affection for The Great American Songbook (and his own songs written in that classic style).
Connick’s newest Columbia album, Your Songs , to be released on Vinyl on August 25 and on CD September 22, both extends this tradition and compliments it. Like his best-selling Only You of 2004, Your Songs consists of Connick singing familiar songs with a full jazz big band and string orchestra, and, as with nearly all of Harry’s previous albums, he wrote each of the orchestrations himself. (He also recruited two of his lifelong friends from New Orleans, Branford and Wynton Marsalis, as well as bluegrass guitar virtuoso Bryan Sutton, for guest appearances). On most of his albums, Connick is a virtual one-man band. “My usual pattern is I either write the songs or pick the songs,” he says. “Depending on the configuration I arrange, orchestrate, conduct, sing, and then oversee the mixing and mastering. You might say that I’m very hands on.”
However, what makes Your Songs different from all of Connick’s previous projects is that this album represents the first occasion in which he has teamed up with a record company producer, the legendary Clive Davis. For nearly 50 years, Davis has been one of the leading lights of the music industry and more recently was promoted to Chief Creative Officer (CCO) at Sony Music Entertainment after heading the BMG Label Group.
