Harry Connick, Jr. has been part of American musical life for nearly four decades, as a pianist, singer, composer, arranger and entertainer.
His new project, Babe: Elaboratio — A Tribute to My Mother, tells a story he has rarely shared in public: that of his mother, Anita Livingston, who died when Harry was 13.
It’s both an orchestral composition and a book, built largely from Harry’s own memories of his mother — and from the stories about her that he has collected along the way.
When we spoke recently for The Third Story, Harry told me about one of those stories: how his mother, a young Jewish woman from New York, arrived alone in New Orleans and began building the life that would eventually become his.
