John is the man who brought East-Coast style stride piano jazz to Preservation Hall in the early 1980s, adding a syncopated ragtime beat to the traditional New Orleans sound. You don’t need to know that to enjoy this, his debut recording, because this is John solo, demonstrating 16 classic examples of the stride genre unaccompanied. The selection is straightforward and rocks no boats-a little Fats Waller, a little Irving Berlin here, a touch of Jelly Roll Morton-but as a newly recorded documentation of a nearly-lost art, this is both historically and culturally significant.

Of course, that makes this all sound a lot less fun than it is, and also less emotionally resonant. On the fun side, there’s stride legend James P. Johnson’s “Carolina Shout,” which sounds like a cakewalk-literally-until you get to the bridges, which threaten to stumble off the stage and then snap back into place so quickly you get disoriented. It’s a teasing, mocking style, one that can be obnoxiously showy if not delivered with the absolute good humor required. Royen has the nuances down pat.

Then there are ballads like Cole Porter’s “It’s Alright With Me,” which feature deft, unsyncopated passages containing amazingly complex mood mixtures, and Royen is equally handy there, allowing just enough hopeful sunlight to shine through the dark clouds of regret and shame that are the song’s trademark. Stride piano devotees will be happy to hear a local son of sorts delivering such a consolidation of styles; the uninitiated will simply hear the sound of life, in all its beautiful, horrible complexity.