Pianist Mike Hood knows how to please a crowd during his regular gigs at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, as long as the patrons are blues fans. “I take requests, but I don’t play Elton John and I don’t play Billy Joel,” Hood notes.

Hocus Pocus, Hood’s solid debut, sticks to that script. He opens with “Black Cat Bone,” a twist on a traditional blues that rocks out with the outstanding horn section of Rick Trolsen on trombone, Eric Traub on tenor sax, Jason Mingledorff on baritone sax and Barney Floyd on trumpet. The horn charts, all written by Trolsen, are spectacular throughout. The title song, a Hood original, is a worthy addition to the New Orleans R&B canon with a hot saxophone solo from Traub. Other originals offer fresh variations on blues themes, from the hard rocking “Mississippi Dope Trap” to the rumbling “Get Down Tonight” and the “Cool Jerk”-inspired “Down in the Water,” which features a really good piano solo.

Hood is adept at taking familiar blues songs and personalizing them. Howlin’ Wolf’s “I Asked for Water” is delivered in a soft, sleepy voice with piano fills that creep down the song’s dusty corridors as guitarist Jimmy Dreams plays an ingenious variation on Hubert Sumlin’s spooky figure. Robert Johnson’s “Me and the Devil Blues” is done as a slow grind with a great horn chart and Hood tippling a solo out of the Memphis Slim bag. Hood also pays tribute to founding NRBQ guitarist Steve Ferguson with a catchy rendition of the second line strut “Hi Di Ho.