He was the last of the legendary Humphrey Brothers, the unflappable pair who stared into the faces of the hundreds of thousands of traditional jazz fans that passed through Preservation Hall.

Since the hall's inception in 1961, Percy and his older brother Willie were as omnipresent as the instrument case above the door, and about as weathered.

Willie, a clarinet player, passed away in June of last year at the age of 93. [A third brother, Earl, died in 1971.] Percy, a trumpet man, contin...