It’s too late to sign up for the next Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, but Tommy Castro is bringing a special part of the shipboard show to Jazzbones tonight.

The sold-out cruise ship, which holds 1,800 people, will rock its way from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas and is set for Oct. 5-12. South Sound favorite Randy Oxford will be onboard to host the late-night jams, which will feature performers such as Castro, Los Lobos, Dr. John, Etta James, Koko Taylor and Kenny Neal, to name just a few.

“Man, we just get together and have a good time,” Castro said recently, so much so that the cruises inspired the creation of the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue and a recent album, “Command Performance.” The idea, he said, was to try to recapture in clubs the feeling of the jam sessions during the blues cruises.

“There are all these bands, maybe 20 top blues bands from around the country,” Castro said, “playing all different kinds of blues music, from 11 in the morning to 1 a.m. Then, at 1 a.m. there’s a jam session after-hours.”

What started as an impromptu thing has become “the main event,” Castro said. “Everyone wants to be there for the jam session. All the cats get together from all the bands. You don’t know who’ll be there or what’s going to happen, and it may be the best thing that happens on the whole cruise. Everyone stays up till 5 o’clock in the morning. It’s amazing.”

Even though “Sea Cruise” is one of the classics on the live album, there’s no way to re-create the cruise – or the monster jams – on dry land. But Castro and a variable cast of his cruise cohorts come close.

Neal, a terrific guitarist and blues singer, harmonica ace Magic Dick and singer-saxphonist-pianist Deanna Bogart are among the cruise veterans who team up with Castro for the revue and will perform with his band in Tacoma. Bandleaders and national headliners in their own rights, they make time for revue shows, which Castro says are “a serious blast.”

“Everyone comes up and does three or four songs,” Castro said, “and then we break and come back all together and jam. Usually, we invite some local musician to join us.”
If they can schedule it, that means trombonist Randy Oxford will be sitting in tonight, just as he will on the next cruise.

“He fits right in,” Castro said. “We played together on the cruise a couple years ago, and we hope to see him.”
Oxford’s experience with jams around the South Sound make him well suited for the cruise and revue formats. Several of the songs on “Command Performance” are six and seven minutes long, and the rollicking “High on the Hog” lasts nine minutes, 22 seconds.

“Yeah, but whose solo do you want to take out?” Castro asked gleefully.

“I can remember albums like ‘Super Session’ that came out in the ’60s when blues guys would get together in all different kinds of configurations and make records and do long versions of songs and make live albums,” he said.

“But we play it pretty safe in the blues these days. Everyone wants to get their records played on the radio, and we’re encouraged by record labels and managers and whoever to keep these tight little arrangements of our songs so they’re under five minutes so they’ll get played. We just made the decision that on this project that we’d go out and play live and put tracks on there that have the energy and feel of what we’re doing and not worry about the length of them.”

Who’s worried? “Command Performance” is loaded with energetic musicianship. Bogart shines on “I Feel That Old Feeling Coming On,” and the live recording proves she’s one of those singers who can really work a crowd.

“Oh yeah,” Castro said with a laugh. “She sure knows how to do that. People go crazy for Deanna Bogart.”

Just as they will for Magic Dick, Neal and Castro and his hot band. The album and revue showcase a musical format that’s guaranteed to raise the roof on any venue – from a hot, sweaty roadhouse to an opera hall or a cruise ship.

“The point was to be very organic.” Castro said. “It wasn’t a record we expected to tear up the charts. We just wanted to make a good musical statement.”

Message received. Here’s hoping the revue plays its version of the Billy Preston classic “Will It Go Round in Circles.”