“Rejoice at death; cry at the birth.” This mantra became associated with jazz at the time of the music’s own birth in New Orleans a hundred years ago This was the prevailing mode of the city’s famous jazz funerals, in which bands followed a body to the gravesite while playing a somber dirge, as if they were escorting their departed brother to the Promised Land. In Louis Armstrong’s re-creation of a New Orleans funeral, Satchmo would enact the part of a down-home preacher, chanting, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Too bad ol’ Brother Gate couldn’t stay here with us.” Then, as soon as the loved one had been lowered into the ground, and the soul had, apparently, found its way to heaven, the band would break out into a joyous Dixieland number as musicians and mourners alike would dance and parade all the way back to the city.

In December, when the remarkable bassist Dennis Irwin was diagnosed with cancer, his girlfriend, the talented vocalist Aria Hendricks, envisioned a benefit for him at the Allen Room. Yet Irwin’s illness had already progressed to an irreversible stage, and he died on Monday afternoon at 3:30, four hours before the benefit was scheduled to begin. Even so, “Playing Our Parts: A Concert to Benefit Dennis Irwin” was not re-converted at the last minute into a memorial tribute — no eulogies were given, and no one spoke sanctimoniously of the departed. The three-hour all-star concert was conducted as a celebration rather than a shivah call.

Many of the biggest names in music turned out in support of Irwin, because he was the kind of man whom the jazz world could be proud of. He was universally acknowledged as a brilliant bassist, and constantly in demand for his personality as much as his musicianship: He was one of the easiest guys in the world to get along with, as well as the friendliest. I had first met him almost 25 years ago and never failed to be amazed at how he went out of his way to be nice to me — and everyone else.

Although Irwin was an innovative player musically, he was a traditional bassist professionally in the sense that he almost never put his name on a recording or a gig as a leader; Tom Lord’s Jazz Discography lists nearly 170 sessions with him as a sideman, but only one album under his own name (a 1977 duo set called “Focus” with the late pianist James Williams, taped in Italy while the two were in Europe with the Jazz Messengers).

Even though no New Orleans-style jazz was heard on Monday, the proceedings were more than consistent with the Crescent City ideal of mourning and rejoicing; throughout the show, nearly every performer or band did two numbers, one of which was invariably contemplative, introverted and “serious,” the other, bold and brash and swinging.

For instance, the Joe Lovano Nonet (it was strange to see Cameron Brown on bass instead of Irwin) opened with Tadd Dameron’s reflective ballad “Whatever Possessed Me” (with its melody similar to “Nancy With the Laughin’ Face”) and then swung into “Deal,” an outgoing blues piece with long, aggressive solos by all six of the horns. Bill Charlap and his famous trio (with Peter Washington, bass, and Kenny Washington, drums) followed, beginning with one of the all-time most poignant songs of farewell, Leonard Bernstein’s “Some Other Time,” but then exuberantly chucking the mournful mood out of the venue’s celebrated skyline-view windows with the Gershwins’ “Who Cares?”

Tony Bennett, the first of three 80-plus-year-old male singer/superstars, adhered to the pattern as well, with the quiet “But Beautiful” and then the breathlessly fast “I Got Rhythm.” Mose Allison notably departed from this now-established rhythm with a mini-set of original blues-based tunes, including “What’s Your Movie” and “Ever Since the World Ended.” So did the duo of saxophonist Dick Oatts (who, like most of the Lovano Nonet, first worked with Irwin in the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra) and Brazilian pianist Dom Salvador (who played with Irwin on his first recording, in 1976). Their two numbers were both bright, bouncy boppers that showcased the tenorists’ technical facility; no “Come Sunday” (the usual staple of jazz memorial services) for these guys.

A surprise highlight for me were two guitar-bass-drum trios led by players operating at a higher level than I have ever given them credit for previously. John Scofield (with John Patitucci and Jack DeJohnette) opened with his soft folkish original “Flower Power” and then charged into “Dexterity,” a lesser-heard Charlie Parker “rhythm” variant. Bill Frisell (with Ron Carter and Paul Motian) played three short tunes, starting with a Monkish feature for Mr. Carter (he soloed while the guitarist accompanied him tastefully with a two-note riff) and including a somewhat abstract but very moving interpretation of Hank Williams’s “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” which justified Elvis Presley’s description of that tune as “the saddest song I ever heard.”

The final segment centered around the arranger-conductor David Berger and his Sultans of Swing, in whose rhythm section Irwin served for the last 11 years of his life. First, Wynton Marsalis, who earlier in the evening led us through 30 seconds of silence in Irwin’s honor, played “Stardust” at its bittersweet best, moving from one side of the room to the other, in the first row rather than on the stage. Then the band played two numbers by Ms. Hendricks, the first of which she performed with her father, the celebrated singer-lyricist Jon Hendricks (sporting his familiar yachting cap and red dinner jacket). Ms. Hendricks was fine on the hard-swinging “Doodlin’,” but clearly lost it emotionally on “The Very Thought Of You,” a ballad that Irwin had recommended to her and on which she could barely get the words out.

Despite the overall lack of mourning, it was hard not to think about the jazz world’s loss now that old Brother Gate (actually, Dennis Irwin was only 56) is no longer with us. The most touching song of the evening may have been Tony Bennett’s “But Beautiful,” which the master interpreter used to offer a consoling message: that the world goes on and life is still beautiful even though one of its most beloved souls is no longer part of it.