His editor, William Shawn, said Balliett had a genius for saying in words how a particular musician sounds.
His first book, entitled Sound of Surprise, is a collection of 46 pieces on jazz and its title plays on what improvised music does to us – and if you live with The Boss, like I do, you can’t avoid it.
He and the missus slipped down to Melbourne earlier in the week to see Harry Connick Jr at Hamer Hall, after they heard high praise for the show.
He had always placed Harry in the “lighter quadrant”, from the When Harry Met Sally soundtrack and Harry’s Christmas album. Not to mention Harry’s judging on Australian Idol.
But surprised they were. After leading off with a few of his standards like (I Could Only) Whisper Your Name and The Way You Look Tonight, he swung into the Christmas spirit with a wry take on Let It Snow (on a 30°C day in Melbourne) and I Pray On Christmas – before a momentous change of tempo back to his New Orleans roots.
The Boss said he knew Harry could play piano – he bought a CD of Lofty’s Roach Souffle back in 1990 – but on Sunday Harry unshackled his keyboard skills with a dazzling display of stride, boogie and blues piano, echoing Fats Waller, Art Tatum and Errol Garner in turn. Sounds of surprise alright.
Harry grew up in New Orleans and first performed at age five, later studying with Ellis Marsalis and James Booker at the New Orleans Centre for Creative Arts. That’s where he got it from. But The Boss says his sheer command of the keyboard comes from endless practise.
His band was tight and swung all night and the audience loved it. The Boss reckons audiences mostly reflect the music – country audiences can yell and whistle; classical audiences are respectful and subdued; rock audiences stomp and dance and scream – and jazz audiences tap in time and cheerily grunt their approval when it really starts to swing.
Harry drew on his 2019 tribute to Cole Porter with Anything Goes and You Do Something To Me, with sublime support from drummer Arthur Latin and tenor sax player Jerry Weldon, whose solos were a treat.
Then Harry introduced his harpejji, a cross between a piano and a guitar – invented by an electrical engineer – which he learned to play during COVID.
The harpejji allows some lingering vibrato like a steel guitar, and Harry’s soulful meanderings turned into a memorable version of Silent Night; he invited the audience to sing one chorus, and soft female voices filled the hall, without accompaniment, before he and the band broke the spell with a final tasteful chorus.
Then came One Fine Thing – the song he penned for Jill, his wife of 34 years, before Harry added she had come with him on the tour – to catch up with their three daughters, who have been living in Sydney for a year after they decided they liked it here.
As the show came to a close, a lady wearing a tiara stood up near the front of the stalls, holding up a hand-written sign and, on spotting it, Harry leapt off the stage, asking her to turn to the audience and show the sign: “I turned 60 today and I’m cancer free!”
That won her a couple of big hugs from Harry for her birthday – and rousing applause from the audience. He climbed back on the stage as the band belted out Bourbon Street Parade for an encore; The Boss couldn’t spot an unsmiling face as they walked out. Woof!
