Connick hardly ever met a song he doesn't like.

Byline: FRED CRAFTS The Register-Guard

Singer, songwriter, pianist, actor, arranger, conductor, inventor - no wonder people are just wild about Harry Connick Jr. Everything he touches turns to gold.

Especially his recordings. His latest, "Songs I Heard," just earned him his third Grammy Award, for best traditional pop vocal album.

On "Songs I Heard," Connick applies his polished, New Orleans-tinged jazz style to 16 eminently familiar tunes from "Annie," "The Sound of Music," "The Wizard of Oz," "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" and "Mary Poppins."

These are hardly the songs a serious jazzman would pick, even one as adventurous as John (`My Favorite Things') Coltrane. Connick has gone way outside the box to improvise on sugary pop ditties that have been drilled into the American consciousness, such as "The Lonely Goatherd," "Candy Man" and - has the man lost his pop-lovin' mind? - `Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.'

In Connick's view, these and other such songs are "standards." "It's really a kid's record," Connick, 34, explained in a soft Southern drawl by phone from New York City. "But I didn't put any special attention to make it cater to kids, other than the song choices.

`In other words, I arranged it just as I would arrange any other record I've done; I just wanted the kids to hear some jazz music."

Selections from "Songs I Heard" will provide the backbone for an extended concert tour that Connick will make through 11 states, beginning in Portland on Sunday and ending in Grand Rapids, Mich., on May 6. He will perform with a 17-piece band, plus guitarist Jonathan Dubose, at the Hult Center on Tuesday.

However, Connick advises that the concert's playlist will be made up on the spot: "I like to mix it up a little bit."

That's just the way he has conducted his career.

Born in New Orleans, Connick was making a name for himself when he was only 5. By 9, he made his first record. By 18, he was recording for a major label.

"Traditional jazz was the music I heard first," Connick said. "Every since I saw these guys up on stage playing that, I knew that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a part of that."

He added an intriguing afterthought: "Had I been from another city, I don't know what kind of musician I would have been."

Although piano came first, it was his singing that brought him an enormous following. In effect, over the years, he has gone from being a pianist who sings to being known as a singer who plays the piano.

"Singing's been a part of my life the whole time," Connick said, "but most people don't think of me as a piano player. And some people don't even know that I sing or play, much less do anything else. They think I'm the guy in `Independence Day' who got blown up - which is fine, you know, because that's just all part of it."

"It" is a high-profile career that has included four multiplatinum and three platinum albums, three gold albums, three Grammy Awards and one Emmy, plus Cable Ace, Golden Globe and Oscar nominations, a Broadway show (`Thou Shalt Not') and eight motion pictures (`Memphis Belle," "Hope Floats," "Little Man Tate," "Independence Day," "Life Without Dick," "The Simian Line" "Mickey" and "Basic').

Connick even has invented a computerized music display system for band and orchestra players that eliminates the need for sheet music.

Still, when all is said and done, Connick boasts that "piano playing is the root of what I do. That's the heart and soul of everything. Everything comes after that.

`I love the other things - I love to act; I love to conduct; I love to do all of that stuff - but the source is the piano, for sure."

Connick's stride-dominated piano stylings turn up front and center on his release, `30,' which was the latest in a series of CDs he has recorded every five years to chart his evolution.

This one, recorded four years ago, also includes a number of tunes hardly considered jazz standards, among them "I'm Walkin',' "Don't Fence Me In," "Somewhere My Love" and "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree."

"How many of those standards can you play?" Connick asked. "How many recordings of `Stella by Starlight' are there going to be? I'm tired of those songs. They're great songs, but you gotta move on."

Connick is currently finishing filming "Basic" with John Travolta in Florida; an earlier film, John Grisham's "Mickey," will be released in June.

He is looking forward to going on the road, playing essentially one-nighters, for three months.

"I don't like nights off," he said. "The reason they give weekends off to people, I guess, is because they're working 9 to 5. They need to take a weekend off to regroup. But we only play two or three hours a night. The rest of the day is a lot of shopping malls, stuff like that - just a lot of time on the road.

`So I say, `Book me as much as you can, because that's why I'm out there.' If I'm going to be out there, I want to get out there and play.

`The schedule looks pretty gruesome, but if you traveled with us, you'd see that the day goes by before you know it."

CAPTION(S):

The new album from singer and pianist Harry Connick Jr., `Songs I Heard,' features tunes designed to open the world of jazz to younger children. It includes selections from `Mary Poppins' and `The Wizard of Oz.' Setting new standards