BY GAIL PENNINGTON February 25, 2011 Post-Dispatch Television Critic When Harry Connick Jr. was "little, little — like 3 or 4 years old," his parents would take him and his sister to the French Quarter to hear traditional New Orleans jazz. "We'd see these small groups in usually very small venues, a lot smaller than this," Connick said after performing for several hundred TV critics and guests in a Pasadena, Calif., hotel ballroom in January. The senior Connick knew little Harry wanted to play piano because he started teaching himself. "I would play around the house and practice 'When the Saints Go Marching In' or songs like that," he said. Around age 6, he started sitting in with the musicians on their sessions. "They'd see me sitting there, and they'd say, 'Harry, you want to come up and play?' because that's sort of a New Orleans tradition, to have young musicians sit in." By age 14, he was working, "getting hired as the piano player at a lot of those traditional gigs." So when Connick plays "The St. James Infirmary Blues" or "Bourbon Street Parade" in a pledge-drive special airing Wednesday on PBS, it's the real deal. But Connick has never limited himself to the music of his hometown. He started his set for TV critics with "The Way You Look Tonight," by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, which he'll also perform in the PBS special. It's known as a Frank Sinatra classic but actually made its debut, sung by Fred Astaire, in the movie "Swing Time." Just as he hasn't limited himself in musical genres, Connick hasn't limited himself in performing. In addition to recording albums, selling more than 25 million copies on the pop and jazz charts, he has appeared in movies ("Memphis Belle," "Little Man Tate," "Independence Day") and television (he recurred on "Will & Grace" as Grace's husband). He wrote the words and music for the 2001 Broadway musical "Thou Shalt Not," nominated for a Tony award, and starred in the 2006 Broadway revival of "The Pajama Game." "I'm one of those personalities who has to be the center of attention all the time," Connick said, laughing. He got the acting bug in high school plays and found that he loved the fact that "when you do a show, you have to say what's on the page, and it's liberating because you're not you." The PBS special was recorded in July at the Neil Simon Theater in New York and is formally titled "Harry Connick Jr. in Concert on Broadway." Connick performs one act of pop songs and standards and a second act of mostly jazz, backed by his big band plus a 12-piece string section. Three numbers in the concert are from his Broadway musical, "Thou Shalt Not," adapted by David Thompson from an Emile Zola novel about the consequences of breaking biblical commandments. The stars included Norbert Leo Butz, a St. Louis native and Tony winner (for "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels"). "Thou Shalt Not," which opened two weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, ran just 85 performances. But Connick said he was interested in returning to Broadway, as a composer or performer or both. "As an actor, I've only done one show, and it was one of the coolest experiences ever," he said. "I tried to get out of it, really, about two weeks before rehearsals started," fearing he couldn't take the repetition of eight performances a week. "I remember asking Glenn Close, who's done 8 billion Broadway shows, 'Man, how do you do the same thing?' every night. She goes, 'Oh, it's not the same thing eight times a week. You'll see.' And she was right." But music remains closest to his heart, and it's music that has always challenged him most. Even in high school, "I never felt like I didn't belong on stage as a performer," he said. "But as a musician, I've been in situations ... playing with people who just mop the floor with you." Playing jazz "is really, really hard," he said. "That's why there's not a lot of famous teenage jazz bands."