In recent years, Jeff Chaz served as one of a trio of blues performers who’d stuck it out on Bourbon Street, playing for locals who somehow got the impression New Orleans was a major player in the genre — playing Johnnie Taylor to Big Al Carson’s Bobby Rush and Bryan Lee’s Albert King. Relatively speaking, of course — Bourbon has nothing on Beale and Maxwell when it comes to blues history. But Chaz’ latest, In Exile, may give doubters some pause.

That has more to do with his leads than his vocals — as a singer, he’s got a lot of balls, but he frequently overreaches — but those are some great leads. Chaz started in jazz and moved over to country before he’d ever made it to the Quarter, and all those influences battle for supremacy when he takes his space on “You Don’t Know What Love Is.” Despite lyrics that rarely stretch beyond their titles, such as that track and “You Don’t Know the One Who Loves You,” Chaz’s dozen originals do more than just provide excuses to go up the neck. Even instrumentals like “Brownin’ The Flour” and the self-explanatory “The Shuffle In C” are tightly constructed and built around solid riffs, so when he goes off, you’re already hooked.

In the end, the best thing about a CD like In Exile is that you can exile yourself to your living room and still enjoy crowd pleasers like the jump-blues/funk hybrid “Drunk and Stoned” without dealing with tourists who went too far in either direction. And who feels like doing more traveling these days, anyway?