Harry Connick Jr spots a girl whom he suspects is drunk in the front row of the Albert Hall. “Gimme a kiss,” he says, hopping off the stage. “I think I’ve got a crush on you.” Later, he drops a line about her into an old New Orleans drinking song. Half the audience laugh, the rest applaud his ingenuity.

Twenty years and as many albums into his recording career, Connick has developed a vocal style distinctive enough to keep the Frank Sinatra comparisons almost at bay, yet his blossoming as an all-round entertainer has Sinatra stamped all over it. The 40-year-old is also a film and TV star and recently made his Broadway debut.

Strikingly handsome in dark, designer suit and shirt, Connick relied on his personality as much as his playing to woo the crowd on the opening night of his first British tour for four years. Yet the show was far from a cabaret act. His current album, My New Orleans, takes Connick back to the Bourbon Street bars of his home town, where he began performing at the age of 6. He may have made his name as a silky crooner, but there was little easy listening here. Accompanied by an outstanding nine-piece brass band, a double-bass player and Arthur Latin, an astonishing jazz drummer, Connick led jubilantly chaotic, Cajun reworkings of Hello Dolly, Working in a Coal Mine and Jambalaya, singing and shaking his hips.

The most memorable segment was when he switched to a century-old, out-of-tune piano for duets with his guest trombonist Lucien Barbarin. Their 12-minute St James Infirmary, on which Barbarin somehow made his instrument giggle and growl, and the band-accompanied Basin St Blues were both gritty and great fun. More serious was All These People, Connick’s self-penned paean to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Barbarin returned to lighten the mood for a synchronised ass-shake during the finale and, for the traditionalists, there was a Sinatra cover, It Had To Be You, in the encore.

— Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow, Nov 16; Symphony Hall, Birmingham Nov 17, 18

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