The term “supergroup” is attached to seemingly any new project in the current musical landscape, possibly as an alternative to “side-project,” which can come off as ancillary. In the case of Nolatet, which features Mike Dillon, James Singleton, Brian Haas and Johnny Vidacovich, the distinction feels just.

“[It’s] a dream come true for me,” pianist Brian Haas explains of the project. Haas, who is 42 and the youngest member of the quartet, made his mark as the leader of Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. (Percussionist Dillon is in his 50s, bassist Singleton is in his 60s and drummer Vidacovich is in his 70s.) Haas first joined his bandmates on short notice during a set at the 2014 Telluride Jazz Festival after another “special guest” didn’t come through. “We didn’t have any rehearsals or anything,” he recalls. “Afterward, we all went and sat in the dressing room, and we were like, ‘Wow, what just happened?’”

“We liked the way it sounded,” drummer Vidacovich, nearly 30 years Haas’ elder, notes, in his thick Cajun accent. “With cats like this, heavyweight dudes like these guys, it would be very easy to start stepping on each other’s toes. What’s funny about this band—and I noticed it from the very beginning—is that everybody is very polite and [they] don’t step on each other’s toes.”

Their onstage chemistry led to a studio session on a Sunday in February 2015, after a run of shows in the Crescent City. The result of that session is Dogs, released this past February, an effort that Vidacovich says is about “90 percent” improvisational. “We’re all strong and we all very much love the spontaneous kind of things we can do. It’s a collective thing, and it’s a non-one-guy thing. It’s just a very collaborative space and energy that we can go to that no one as an individual can go to.”

Haas estimates that the record was finished in about two hours. “And that’s including a 30-minute break when the fire department showed up,” he adds. “There was some imbibing in the studio near a smoke alarm.”

He continues: “At some point, Johnny stood up and said, ‘OK, that’s it, we got a record.’ It was Super Bowl Sunday—we were lucky to even get him to come to the studio at all.”

Both musicians express an immense gratitude for this project falling into their respective laps. As Haas says of Vidacovich: “He has the bar raised so high that we’re all just trying to rise to the occasion that he creates by his presence. He doesn’t play music; he is music. He comes from a city that is music.”

The drummer’s energy is palpable. “It keeps me very entertained,” Vidacovich says of trying to keep up with three band members younger than him. “It makes me smile and it makes me happy. The happiest times in my life are when I’m playing music with guys that I love, and everybody loves the music—that collective love. Old-school hippie shit, bro.”