The Bassist Is Back : Musician Henry Franklin will return to Ventura’s 66 California this weekend after six-month tour.

For years, bassist Henry Franklin has been a steady presence in Ventura.

A friendly hulk of a player who maneuvers around his instrument with the greatest of ease, he was the guy at the heart of the jazz world at 66 California, the reliable nucleus around which a rotating roster of musicians and special guests swirled.

But he’s been out of the loop for six months, making his gig at the restaurant this Saturday something of a homecoming.

Last April, Franklin embarked on his third tour of European duty with the Rene Van Helsingen Quartet, along with Los Angeles-based drummer Donald Dean.

Back in the Southland this week, Franklin reported that the group performed at 118 festivals and concerts during the latest sojourn.

On Saturday, Franklin will play with Dean and pianist Theo Saunders, a former local favorite now living in Los Angeles.

Franklin isn’t planning to resume his old status as house bassist at the 66, mainly because of a commute that logged 140 miles each way.

“I’m not going to be there every week because that drive was just killing me,” he said. “I live in Perris, next to Riverside. . . . I have to just do it when I can.”

DETAILS

Henry Franklin Trio at 66 California, Saturday at 9 p.m., 66 California St. in Ventura; 648-2266.

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Crooner Comes of Age: There’s no set blueprint for the career trajectory of a jazz musician, but serious observers of the art form have an unwritten checklist of what not to do.

In the case of Harry Connick Jr., who appears at Santa Barbara’s Arlington Theater this Tuesday with his big band, the saga has been a strange one, and one not unstained by critical venom.

He first bounded onto the scene more than a decade ago, a precocious pianist from New Orleans--home of the Marsalis clan, not to mention the cradle of jazz.

He studied piano with Ellis Marsalis and Crescent City legend James Booker and possessed a promising jazz voice.

Enter Hollywood: Connick scored a huge hit with his score for 1989’s “When Harry Met Sally” and found his way in front of the camera, acting in films such as “Copycat,” “Hope Floats” and “Independence Day.”

Along the way, he married and started a family with Jill Goodacre, a model best known for her appearances in Victoria’s Secret catalogs.

Jazz aficionados had to wonder: Was he another case of a dabbler who sold his soul to high bidders from Tinsel Town? It didn’t help that he became better known as a singer with a distinctly and unabashedly Sinatra-esque swagger than as a pianist.

Not only has he not suffered for his art, the line of skepticism went, but he turned his back on the jazz impulse that first fueled him.

Despite the suspicions, though, Connick still checks in with the bona fide musical muse, as he has with his fine new album, “Come by Me.”

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It’s a big band date, full of smartly devised charts, revised standards (“Time After Time,” “Love for Sale” and a cool, clever read on “There’s No Business Like Show Business”), as well as witty originals inspired by the heyday of American popular song, the days of Cole Porter, Gershwin and Harold Arlen.

He sings with a new understated confidence, and his piano turns, if sparing, show small degrees of maturation.

In short, it’s among Connick’s finest projects, and it’s evidence that all of his detours and distractions haven’t chipped away at his generous core talent. At the ripened age of 31, Connick has been through a lot since emerging in public at the end of his teens.

He’s growing up in a fishbowl, something hard to do.

The chance to catch him with his big band in the Arlington Theater should be an opportunity to savor.

DETAILS

Harry Connick Jr., Tuesday at 8 p.m. at the Arlington Theater, 1317 State St. in Santa Barbara. Tickets are $45; 583-8700.

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Josef Woodard, who writes about art and music, can be reached by e-mail at joeinfo@aol.com.