“The first time I went to Preservation Hall he was playing the clarinet, and I was just enthralled,” says clarinetist Tom Sancton of his late mentor, George Lewis, a revered traditional jazz musician who rose to prominence in the 1960s during a time jazz historians refer to as the Second Trad Jazz Revival. Following Sancton’s apprenticeship under the iconic New Orleanian, he would go on to pursue a career in journalism, spending the greater part of four decades away from his Crescent City home. Upon Sancton’s 2007 return, he began playing at Trinity Episcopal Church Sunday evening artists series. His new album Hymns and Spirituals features live recordings from the series collected between 2007-09. Sancton’s guiding inspiration for the project grew from his admiration of his former teacher’s live 1954 album Jazz at Vespers and a sound he describes as “molten silver… mellow… [with] a vibrato that’s almost like breathing.” For a deeper look into Sancton’s new project, press play.

[powerpress image=”https://www.offbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/powerpress/2013/02/tommy-sancton-look-ka-py-py-podcast.m4a”]