After his recent stint on Broadway, Harry Connick Jnr. is set to re-embrace his hometown of New Orleans.
His acclaimed performance in stage production 'The Pajama Game' will soon make way for a new album, a tribute to the city of jazz. 'Oh, My Nola' will see the performer tackle jazz, gospel, brass band, rhythm and blues, country and funk sounds. "[They] aren't all the styles played in New Orleans," he says. "But they're the ones I wanted to play around with."On the album, he reinterprets the Hank Williams classic 'Jambalaya', explaining he has infused the track with a "New Orleans groove ... instead of a traditional Cajun or Zydeco feeling, then we move into an entirely new tempo for an entirely new groove - big-band swing."
It's set to be a highly personal album for Connick Jnr. - he reinterprets 'Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey' which was the favourite song of his uncle Ray, as well as 'Lazy Bones', one of the songs his mother would sing to him as a child. Two new original compositions - 'Do That Thing' and 'All These People' - are featured in the set, the latter exploring the suffering experienced by Hurricane Katrina victims.
The track is a duet with gospel singer Kim Burrell, with Connick Jnr. explaining, "I wanted somehow to represent the voices of the brave people who were abandoned there, and Kim was the perfect choice. She asked me to write an added verse, because she wanted to represent the two dead bodies that Darryl [a New Orleans resident] showed me when I first arrived at the Convention Center; and her improvised line 'Come see about me' at the end is my favorite part of the performance, because that's all those folks wanted, someone to come and see about them."
A portion of royalties from the album will be donated to the New Orleans Habitat Musician's Village, a project conceived by Connick Jnr. and his friend, Branford Marsalis.
