In this tribute to two figures from the richly musical African-American mid-century, ex-pat Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne (American born, he lives in and works from Vancouver, British Columbia) delves into the wide-ranging but related blues styles of Willie Dixon and Memphis Slim (John "Peter" Chatman).

The inspiration for Wayne's particular approach here is surely Dixon's 1940s group, the Big Three, an acoustic bass/piano/guitar outfit with Dixon on the first instrument. It specialized in light urban blues, novelty and jazz, not much like the hard-core neo-Mississippi sound associated with later Dixon-penned classics such as "I'm a Hoochie Coochie Man," "Wang Dang Doodle," "I'm Ready," "Little Red Rooster" and more memorably cut by Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters. The approach that Dixon conjured up in those days is still a crucial part of the vocabulary of the blues.

If less widespread, Memphis Slim's influence was largely on a generation of blues-piano performers. He was an exceptionally talented singer and songwriter, too. The most widely covered of his songs is "Mother Earth," an original number that is both environmentally themed (at least implicitly) and death-haunted. Blues from Chicago to Paris directs its attention in good part, albeit not exclusively, to the relatively short -- late 1950s to early 1960s -- touring partnership of Dixon and Slim, much of it spent in Europe. It ended in 1962 when Slim decided he liked Paris well enough to want to stay there -- which he did until he died 26 years later. Dixon returned to Chicago and immortality.

Wayne's trio differs from Dixon's in having no guitar. Joey DiMarco's drums occupy that space in masterly fashion, while Russell Jackson handles stand-up bass just as impressively. Wayne is the piano man, champion of a good-humored, swinging approach whose roots sometimes transcend pure blues and absorb echoes of vintage pop and jazz. They also dig into the roots, meaning pre-blues Black and white folk songs such as "Stewball" (a 19th-century broadside ballad, also sung by Lead Belly), "Somebody Tell That Woman" (a version of "Boat's up the River") and the good-timey "After While." It bears mentioning that Wayne rides no warhorses. All of the numbers are eminently worth hearing; few of the Dixon/Slim originals are familiar, and if so, far from overly.

Now in his late 70s, Wayne shows the best side of old age (accumulated experience, taste, precision) with none of the bad (the inevitable inability of fingers and voice to hold up their end). The performance is bright and joyous, there to be heard and enjoyed as often as one desires. That is likely to be a bunch of times. In fact, let me venture to say that if you don't like this, either there's something wrong with your hearing, or you just don't care all that much for music. In From Chicago to Paris Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne lives up to his billing. Here's a master in peak form.