John Ellis & Double-Wide play serious music that does not take itself too seriously. The band makes its way over uncommon time signatures and modes to produce music that is simply fun.

Gary Versace’s keyboards and accordion match up with Matt Perrine’s sousaphone percolations and Jason Marsalis’ melodic drums and rhythmic textures to lay down a base that would sound at home in a circus or some Brecht/Weill outtakes. Over that, Ellis’ saxophone and Alan Ferber’s trombone play melodies that both soar and cross like trapeze artists and cry like sad clowns.

Highlights include the neo-traditional interweavings of “Horse Won’t Trot” and the urban punctuations and sousaphone tumbles of “International Tuba Day.” All the songs here have a rhythmic propulsion, even the ballads. The music doesn’t allow anyone to sit back and lay down a groove. For music with its share of complexities, the band makes things sound interesting and easy.

The lead off track, “Booker,” might be a tribute to James Booker with its shambolic, laid back “Junco Partner” strut, or a musical version of a Booker T. Washington speech with its varying instruments taking on different themes of Washington’s exhortations—or, with Versace’s Memphis-esque organ solo, an ode to Booker T. of the M.G.’s.

Whichever it might be, both on this tune and all over the record, the band sounds like it is having a great time, and that enthusiasm is welcome in this age in the jazz world, with its over-seriousness. Jazz can be both challenging and accessible, and John Ellis & Double-Wide pull that off good naturedly, in a way that lives up to the title of this recording.