This album, the product of a New Orleanian, a Swede, a Canadian and a Brit, is fine testimony to the power of New Orleans jazz to inspire. It is anchored by Steve Pistorius, the local pianist whose strong synthesis of Jelly Roll Morton and the New York stride players pushes the project along with just the right taste and power. Tyler Thomson, a young newcomer on bass from Toronto, specializes in slap bass methods and is as rhythmically propulsive as he is harmonically right-on.

What keeps the disc running through my head after repeated listenings, however, is the ensemble magic of the two clarinets on lead. Orange Kellin, who arrived in New Orleans in the 1960s and who has had a long career in New York as well, has never sounded better. His partner is the Englishman James Evans, who must be counted as one of the strongest additions to the New Orleans trad scene in years. In his clarinet and alto sax playing one hears echoes of Barney Bigard and the young Johnny Hodges, and in general, a free-wheeling, floating quality that not many trad players achieve. “Jazz is the sound of surprise,” said Whitney Balliett, and Evans embodies this dictum well.

The repertoire is strong on Bechet, with rarities by Natty Dominique, Bill Whitmore, Tony Jackson and Lorenzo Barceleta. I will likely end up listening to this disc more than any New Orleans jazz disc released this year.