The stained-glass motif of the cover photo of Tommy Sancton and Lars Edegran’s Hymns & Spirituals is modeled on that of George Lewis’ 1954 Jazz at Vespers. Buy on AmazonSix decades separate the two albums, but you wouldn’t know it from the repertoire. Sancton (a Lewis disciple) pays tribute to his mentor’s “un-fussy” approach to melody, letting the long, lyrical tones of the hymns sing out on his clarinet.

The recordings themselves are culled from a series of live performances that Sancton, Edegran, and friends put on at Trinity Episcopal Church between 2007 and 2009. Cuts from the same shows have appeared on previous releases, but Hymns & Spirituals gives them their most polished treatment to date. The spacious, reverberant setting might spell acoustic disaster for a bigger group, but the quartet’s sparse, “single-horn” approach fills the room without spilling over.

Uptempo numbers like “Streets of the City” and “At the Cross” are sustained by Seva Venet’s bouncing guitar rhythms, but Hymns & Spirituals is a decidedly unhurried record, with the leisurely pace of a Sunday service. This is jazz cut down to its most basic elements—simple melodies, cheerful rhythms.