We Play for Tips, the outstanding new album by the Sicilian saxophonist Francesco Cafiso, is a homage to New Orleans jazz. The title comes from a saying that Crescent City street musicians have emblazoned on their caps, an image that Cafiso says stuck with him after a trip to New Orleans when he was a teenager.

But the latest recording by the 28-year-old virtuoso from Vittoria also represents a contemporary musician’s connection to a history that began a century ago, when Sicilian immigrant and first-generation Sicilian American musicians contributed to the development of jazz in New Orleans.