By Steven Suskin Variety July 17, 2010 After a reasonably expert first act, Harry Connick, Jr. opens the second by trading in his Steinway for a battered honky-tonk piano and giving us a New Orleans-style "Sweet Georgia Brown" that is easily the most remarkable demonstration of musicality presently on display on Broadway. Assaulting the keys, beating percussively on the pedals, smacking the sideboard and crooning away, he also provides a dazzling drum break without a drum. He and his band then top this with not one but a handful of cyclonic numbers. Connick, in concert, packs such dynamite that those "Jersey Boys" across the street seem positively sedate. This is Connick's third Main Stem appearance. He demonstrated a crowd-pleasing presence in 1990 as a fresh-faced twenty-three year old in "An Evening with Harry Connick, Jr." at the Lunt, and demonstrated full musical comedy talent when he buoyed the 2006 revival of "The Pajama Game." "Harry Connick, Jr. in Concert on Broadway" starts out seeming like a standard touring gig, but Broadway is very much on the star's mind. Connick's self-effacing patter, breezily charming at first, turns personal; he discusses his lost Tony Award to the guy from that show across the street, "Jersey Boys" ("apparently, he was a lot better than I was") and inserts several rueful mentions of "Thou Shalt Not," the ill-fated Susan Stroman-helmed Broadway musical for which he provided the score in 2001 ("it sucked, man"). That said, he sees fit to raise the roof with one of that show's tunes, "Take Her to the Mardi Gras." Contributing to the magic of the second act is Lucien Barbarin, whom Connick introduces as one of the great New Orleans trombonists. Barbarin quickly stakes his claim; the pair's take on "St. James Infirmary Blues" is astoundingly good, with Connick pounding away and Barbarin sounding like a husky, mewling kitten that's swallowed a kazoo. The pair continue with four successive knockouts, with Connick's main musicians -- Jerry Weldon on sax, Neal Caine on bass, Arthur Latin on drums -- pulled from the twenty-piece band for exceptional solo after exceptional solo. (Trumpeter Mark Braud came down from the bandstand for one spot, in the finale, and blew off what was left of the roof.) Connick himself has provided the swinging orchestrations, and he graciously salutes his soloists by name. The ten strings are industriously employed in the first act, but by the end of the second sit jealously watching as the soloists and the rest of the brass section get to have all the fun. Connick interrupted the opening night to praise his wife and three daughters, as only a lovesick dad can do. He even bowed to eight-year-old Charlotte's insistence that he bring her up on stage to tell a joke. Which she did, demonstrating cool fearlessness and canny timing. The boy from New Orleans professes a bit of nervousness facing Broadway once more, but he needn't. Prducers take note: He's a natural with all the tools for musical comedy stardom. "Harry Connick, Jr. in Concert on Broadway" runs for thirteen perfs over two weeks at the Simon, which still seems to be in booking limbo while awaiting the promised-but-delayed arrival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Love Never Dies." If business is brisk, Connick and his tiptop musicians might easily ease back into town for a holiday week or two. With a show this good, Harry can certainly count on a large chunk of repeat biz at premium prices.