I got up early today to watch the
NFL Conference Championship Games (two games often better than the actual
Superbowl) only to find that the Soulless TV Execs had, as usual bumped the
start times back two hours. I guess the
ridiculous amount of revenue the NFL already generates for TV wasn’t enough,
and they needed just a little bit more.
On the plus side, it gives me time
to write this next music review. The
Odyssey isn’t going to complete itself, my friends.
Disc 478 is…We Are In Love
Artist: Harry
Connick Jr.
Year of Release: 1990
What’s up with the Cover? A very young Harry Connick, Jr. is the embodiment of
jazzy coolness. While the early nineties
were not kind to the cut of men’s suits, Harry manages to make this formless
wedge work for him. Such is star power.
How I Came To Know It: Like a lot of people I think Harry Connick Jr. came
on my radar after I saw the movie “When Harry Met Sally,” which featured him
singing some jazz standards. This record
came out after that, and after really liking the first couple of singles off of
it, I decided to take the plunge into an area of music I usually pass by. I bought it on tape, of all things, but many
years later I decided to upgrade to CD because surely that format will never become obsolete.
How It Stacks Up: Apparently Harry Connick Jr. has something in the
neighbourhood of twenty albums (including two he recorded at ages 10 and 11)
but “We Are In Love” is the only one I have.
Consequently, it can’t stack up.
Them’s the rules, folks.
Rating: 4 stars
In 1990,
Harry Connick Jr. was like the second coming of Frank Sinatra, only breezier. For a brief time, he reinvigorated mainstream
North America with a love for that jazz/easy listening crossover that Sinatra
had delivered so well a couple of decades earlier.
Listening
to “We Are In Love” it is easy to see why Connick was so successful. His voice is a once-in-a-generation talent,
and even on the most difficult of songs he always sounds relaxed and easygoing
as he carries you – not unlike Sinatra – sometimes subtly in front of the beat
and sometimes just behind it, and always exactly where it is called for. It makes a musical style (jazz) that is about
precision and infuses it with a human quality that engages the ordinary,
uneducated listener (me).
The
other performers on the record are top notch as well, including the legendary
Branford Marsalis, who I enjoyed a lot more here than when I reviewed Sting’s “Dream of the Blue Turtles” and “Nothing Like the Sun.” Marsalis is always a great
player, but this genre suits him better to my mind.
All the
musicianship is excellent, and while it doesn’t break new ground, Connick
leaves enough space for the other players to show off their talents and have a
few short runs here and there – the best of these is on “It’s Alright With Me” with every player getting their turn to
noodle just a little. I once saw an
interview where Connick admitted that most people come to his show for the easy
listening, but that he always tried to slip a little jazz in on them when they
weren’t looking. I love this notion,
which I think can apply to all manner of endeavor – artistic or otherwise.
The
upbeat tracks on his record had me snapping my fingers and doing a little
shuffle foot at red lights on more than one occasion. This, coupled with my giant headphones made
me look like even more of a weirdo, but it seemed a crime not to dance, if only
a little.
“We Are In Love” and “Recipe For Love” are up-tempo, up-beat
songs that sound like jazz standards that have been around for fifty
years. In fact, Connick wrote them both,
along with a total of eight of the album’s twelve tracks. Mainstream jazz music and folk music both
share an appreciation for traditional songs, and it is almost expected that an
album should have a few covers. On a bad
jazz or folk album, these covers are the only good songs, but on a good one,
they just blend in with the excellence of the new content.
This is
the case on “We Are In Love,” and despite taking on Cole Porter’s “It’s Alright With Me” and then matching
Sinatra’s brilliance on “A Nightingale
Sang in Berkeley Square,” (with an assist from Marsalis) I always find
myself more interested in the new songs.
Connick
is a natural songwriter, both musically and lyrically. He does slow-and-somber and upbeat-and-playful
with equal grace. His playful imagery on
“Forever For Now” reassures you that
there is nothing to be afraid of in love, all that’s needed is a carefree
willingness to let it happen :
“By the ticket counter for love
in spring
I’ll be standing there with Cupid
And he can aim that thing.”
And when
he’s singing about that same love lost on “Only
‘Cause I Don’t Have You” the lyrics evoke the depressing reality of a party
that’s over:
“Turn off the music
Take down the signs
Pick up the boxes
Put away the wine
No toast for the future
No reward for the find.”
Because of
the proximity of the references to boxes and wine, this section always inadvertently
makes me think of cheap wine that comes in boxes. You know the kind – usually found at low-end
backyard summer parties. Before those
boxes are tossed, there is the dreaded ‘bag squeeze’ ritual. That’s when you take the wine bag out of the
box, and squeeze the living hell out of it to get the last of whatever
Chardonnay remains into whatever plastic cup on the table that still looks
clean enough to risk putting your lips on.
By that
point you probably have a headache from all the sun, but you’ve stuck around
until there’s only a few people left and now there’s nothing for it but to help
the host clean up the potato salad before it goes off, and then head inside and
help with the dishes. If that’s not like
waking up on the wrong side of a failed relationship, I don’t know what is.
When I
first got this album, it was just the upbeat stuff that I enjoyed, and I would
sometimes skip the slower tracks (no mean feat on tape). On this listen I enjoyed the mix and I wouldn’t
have skipped a track even if the CD Odyssey didn’t forbid it (which it does – a
full listen, monkey!). If anything I
appreciate this record more now than ever.
It has aged like a fine wine; hopefully not one that came out of a box.
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