In some jazz circles, the term “trad” sometimes gets a bad rap—like a fusty pop equivalent of the “historically informed performances” of the classical scene. Of course, New Orleans music fans know better, since in the context of the NOLA scene, we’re used to experiencing all music on a continuum, all styles living side by side, part of the same ongoing moment in history. Pianist Eli Yamin and clarinetist Evan Christopher prove as much in Louie’s Dream, a loving tribute to their musical forebears. While they have a sure command of idiomatic detail, they also inform the music with their own contemporary sensibilities.

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That means a perfectly swinging title track (for its composer, Louis Armstrong), but also a re-imagined arrangement of the Ellington clarinet showpiece, “The Mooche” (for Ellington clarinet man and New Orleanian Barney Bigard). Christopher has a big, beautiful tone, especially in his lower register, and he can float his upper register on a pure, unbroken whisper. Yamin’s voicings, rhythms, and dynamics are always evocative, and when these two hit the right harmony, as on the Christopher original “You Gotta Treat It Gentle” (for Sidney Bechet), they create the illusion of a third instrument. On Yamin’s “Baraka 75” (for Amiri Baraka), you can hear the dissonances of Thelonious Monk as well as Monk’s stride roots. Yamin’s recitation of a short original poem suggests the unity in the music’s disparate strands: “My jazz hero is kind and fierce.”