How to test database connectivity in python?

I am accessing a MySQL database from python via MySQLdb library. I am attempting to test the database connection as shown below.

db = MySQLdb.connect(self.server, self.user, 
                     self.passwd, self.schema)
cursor = db.cursor()        
try:
    cursor.execute("SELECT VERSION()")
    results = cursor.fetchone()
    ver = results[0]
    if (ver is None):
        return False
    else:
        return True               
except:
    print "ERROR IN CONNECTION"
    return False

Is this the right way one should test the connectivity when writing unit testcases? If there is a better way, please enlighten!