Everybody's Wild About Harry

By ELIZABETH L. BLAND

Females from 15 to 50 have been lining up outside stage doors across the country, waiting for glimpses of this 22-year-old crooner, and with good reason: coming from his sensuous mouth, It Had to Be You never sounded so fresh. He plays a mean piano too, and has been known to break into a soft- shoe, sit in for his drummer or do a send-up of Liza Minnelli. In short, Harry Connick Jr. is a showman, right down to his snakeskin shoes.

With a big band behind him and several thousand enthusiastic fans in front, Connick and his piano have taken center stage. On tour since November with his top-selling sound track from the summer hit When Harry (no relation) Met Sally . . ., he has extended his run through February to satisfy the crowds. And his retro good looks and easy charm have also helped land him his first film role, as a tail gunner in David Puttnam's World War II movie Memphis Belle, due by Labor Day.

But Connick is more than a flavor-of-the-month matinee idol. He is a musician of serious intent. His first major-label album, a self-titled jazz collection that included a superb rendition of the classic On Green Dolphin Street, was followed by a second, 20 (Connick's age at the time), that introduced his Sinatra-style vocals ("I am not a jazz singer. I call it swing"). The chart-topping When Harry Met Sally . . . will be followed this spring by two new recordings, one with vocals and a big band and another with a jazz trio, "for my soul. I need to play some piano."

It was the piano, after all, that got him going. Young Harry was flirting with the keys by age three and at five was good enough to play The Star- Spangled Banner at his father's inauguration as New Orleans district attorney. (His late mother was a judge.) His parents, who put themselves through law school by running a record store, loved to take their two children to the French Quarter on weekends to listen to the Dixieland and bebop bands on Bourbon Street. Local musicians, many of whom had dealings with the D.A., were glad to have Harry Jr. onstage. Having an audience was intoxicating, Connick says. "Even now, if I see a piano, I have to play. I don't care where it is. I guess it's from getting that attention every weekend."

Big Easy musicians, with their color-blind generosity and love of music, made excellent teachers. The renowned rhythm-and-blues pianist James Booker used to come round to the Connick home to teach young Harry. "Booker was a genius," says Connick. "The piano has been around for hundreds of years, and he figured out a new way to play it. I have more respect for him than for anyone I have ever known." Booker taught another lesson: Connick attributes his clean living, in part, to Booker's early death from drug and alcohol abuse when Connick was 13.

Pianist Ellis Marsalis, patriarch of the jazz clan, was another respected teacher, but it was his son Wynton who ultimately had more influence. Six years older than Connick, Wynton had made a national splash with his horn while Harry was still in high school. "I wanted to be Wynton. I wanted to be in his band. I dressed like him. I talked like him."

These days, though, Connick finds the studious Marsalis approach no longer suits, and he strictly follows his own path. Looking back to Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, he notes that those jazz greats had a proud history of performing. "Tell me they weren't entertainers, man. They would go out there and give the people a good time." To that end, Connick's latest role model is Frank Sinatra. Not only does Connick aspire to additional -- though occasional -- film roles, as well as to continue singing swing and playing the piano, but he may, like it or not, be on his way to becoming something of a sensation. So for now, Harry, it has to be you.