Alison Fensterstock writes a very smart piece for Paste Magazine on musician/actor Harry Connick Jr.’s ode to New Orleans, his home town.

More than anything, Harry Connick Jr. is an artist whose appeal transcends trends. His style is timeless, like New Orleans, and his music—although he’s taken it far beyond the city’s borders—is rooted in the tradition that puts a love of the sound before anything else. On Oh My Nola, old and new come together, with legendary bassist Bill Huntington and trombonist Lucien Barbarin joining up-and-coming, under-21 players like Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews and pianist Jonathan Batiste, who, in true laidback New Orleans style, were invited to record when Connick ran into them in town.

Connick shrugs off his place in the history of New Orleans jazz. “I’ve learned a lot from that tradition, but I don’t really think of myself as part of it. I’m humbled by those who came before me, but I don’t feel like it’s appropriate to put myself as part of it.” But it’s records like Oh My Nola, and serendipitous groupings like the musicians on it, that make that tradition and that community what they are. It’s history, and like it or not, Harry Connick Jr.—a class act all the way—is part of it.