As a member of Roomful of Blues and the Fabulous Thunderbirds, guitarist/singer Duke Robillard has been responsible for bringing blues music into the lives of many rock’n’roll fans. But his work with those groups didn’t afford him much of a chance to work in his favored sub-genre, a jazzy, swinging blues that owes more to the big band era than it does to the Mississippi delta or Chicago.

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That’s a sound that the late Texas bluesman T-Bone Walker pioneered as a vaudeville performer, playing banjo with the likes of Cab Calloway before going on to become one of the first bluesmen to popularize the use of electric guitar and a huge influence on B.B. King. Robillard’s tribute taps perfectly into the old-timey groove on “T-Bone Shuffle,” where his picking is mostly on the rhythm and leaves lots of space for Al Basile to blow a jumping cornet solo. Lots of sax, clarinet, trumpet and trombone are featured throughout, and Matt McCabe tickles the ivories behind Robillard on every track. Robillard is also in fine shape vocally here, sounding especially lusty on the innuendo-heavy “Pony Tail;” “I met a little girl/She was wearing a pony tail/If I had her address/She sure could get my mail!” T-Bone’s most famous song, “Stormy Monday Blues,” is not covered here, but it won’t be missed after a listen to “I’m Still in Love with You,” an extended torcher done in a similar style.

—Kevin Wierzbicki