Mitch Woods usually performs and records with his band, the Rocket 88s, named after a 1951 song cut by Jackie Breston and Ike Turner and often judged, with occasional dissent, to be the first rock 'n' roll record. Piano player Woods, who lives in the Bay Area, is an unusually amiable presence, and no doubt his warmth the first thing a listener notices about him. But soon the impressive talent rises to the surface of the easygoing exterior, and the listener reflects that what he's doing can't be that easy. What that is involves in resonant part the resurrection of classic mid-century jump blues and boogie-woogie, plus less famous pieces of sufficiently high quality that while they draw attention to themselves, they don't do it for the wrong reasons.

Woods knows a whole lot about the music on just about every level. On this solo live album cut before an appreciative audience at the popular nightclub Snug Harbor, Woods manages to sing these songs as if just discovering them, obviously far from the case. Still, there's no mistake about how much he loves them and how much fun he has with them.

A Night in New Orleans consists of material that all of us a certain age have carried around with us if we're of discriminating taste in popular songs. Recorded elsewhere often enough to lean listless and cliched, in Woods' exuberant treatment they return to the life they once carried so vibrantly. Put on the album, lie back, and relax; suddenly the whole world is a better place to occupy, though an objective view of such things is perhaps enhanced by recent happy political developments of which Woods, or anybody, had no inkling that entertaining evening in the Crescent City. But when you hear the joy in swing chestnuts such as "Choo Choo Ch'boogie," "Rockin' Pneumonia & the Boogie Woogie Flu" and "Shake Rattle & Roll," or in some less familiar covers and an original or two, you'll be thrilled that Woods decided to take them out on the dance floor one more time.

Nothing profound is going on here, but the fun section of the cosmos does get full representation. There's no living artist I'd rather be doing this than Woods. Yes, he can be a deeper, more serious bluesman if he chooses to be; the evidence is on other of his recordings I've written about in this space. This one, though, is for the smiles and the laughs and for the overwhelming, unexpected relief that, against all odds, we have survived to breathe free air. It's the perfect gift for the occasion.