Fans of Harry Connick, Jr.’s crooner CDs will be pleased to know that Harry’s latest, To See You, abandons the funk experimentation of She and Star Turtle for a return to the Sinatraesque mood of earlier Connick albums from 20 to Red Light, Blue Light. Specifically, Harry evokes “Only the Lonely,” Sinatra’s masterpiece of melancholy and world-weary balladry, in this weighty 75-minute slab of unrequited love songs. On a technical level, the CD is undeniably impressive. There is no other New Orleans musician, and few elsewhere, who could fashion arrangements (many of them exquisite) for an hour of original music for a 60-piece orchestra, write lyrics, play subtle, swinging piano and sing pleasantly on top of it all. Connick’s peculiar combination of talents here made me grin on several occasions; “In Love Again,” for instance, shows what might have resulted had Thelonious Monk written an arrangement for Errol Garner to play with strings.

At the same time–and realizing that Connick’s core audience is not 40-year-old male music critics–I must add that none of the tunes stick with me at all. Connick might be in Gordon Jenkins’ or Nelson Riddle’s league as an arranger, but as a tunesmith he’s no Jimmy Van Heusen. I mention this because in the area of love songs, simple, memorable melody is paramount, and these are harmonically dense tunes lacking the necessary “love song simplicity factor.”

It’s disappointing that Connick has to bother with an album of sophisticated make-out music (oh, I’m sorry, “Music for Romance”) when he could do so much more. Let’s hope the lackluster commercial fate of Star Turtle doesn’t stop Connick from pulling out all the stops and pursing that direction again soon