A common criticism of reviewers is that they’re too caught up in the pursuit of the new, cool thing to get beauty anymore. The thing that’s hard to tell the artist that made the beautiful piece he or she made is it’s often beautiful like a soap opera star is beautiful—in a conventional, familiar, unspectacular way. Critics still respond to genuine beauty. Tim Laughlin’s A Royal St. Serenade is genuinely beautiful. There’s nothing groundbreaking about his album, but there’s nothing run of the mill about it, either. Laughlin considers what is necessary to put each piece in its best light, whether it’s slowing down “I’m Sorry I Made You Cry” to emphasize its lyrical nature, or adding a spry bounce to “Down by the Old Mill Stream” to liberate the song from the barbershop quartets that rendered it corny. He sets the warm, woody tone of his clarinet next to the plush, metallic echo of Jason Marsalis’ vibes, and while he performs W.C. Handy’s “Aunt Hagar’s Blues” and tunes associated with Benny Goodman, the album isn’t defined by any time or school. It’s traditional without being trad, swing without being for dancers only, and New Orleans without being cliché.

A Royal St. Serenade sounds contemporary in part because of Laughlin’s attention to the sound of his quintet—which also includes Larry Scala, Matt Perrine and Bunchy Johnson—but also because few of his choices are overly familiar. The most traditional-sounding songs on the album are his own. The title composition features a clear, simple clarinet melody that is so easily grasped that it seems like it must have been around forever. It becomes increasingly complex and more distinctive as the song goes on, though, and Laughlin’s talent for writing timeless melody statements is equally evident in “A Song for Juliet”—his wife—and “For Pete’s Sake”—for Pete Fountain. The most adventurous track on A Royal St. Serenade is “Wolf’s Gang,” an excerpt from Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto rearranged as a swinging march with vibes and banjo. It’s wryly witty, but it’s not a joke. And it fits because A Royal St. Serenade is full of musical love letters, and the arrangement is Laughlin’s way of showing his affection for Mozart. To his credit, Laughlin wisely never lets the warm sentiment be a piece or the album’s dominant trait. He is, he admits, in a good place these days, but he executes the songs with taste, complexity and personality—traits that are always hallmarks of beauty.