Backed by the band of the late Portland bluesman Paul deLay, boogie woogie pianists Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne, D.K. Stewart and David Vest will tickle the ivories separately and together in what should be a hot time at the Sixth Avenue club.

“We’ll each work individually, and then we’ll have some duets and then we’ll have a grand finale with all three guys going,” said Vest, who was a member of deLay’s group until the bandleader’s death from leukemia last May.

Wayne, who has worked with artists such as Billy Preston, Jeff Healey and Joe Louis Walker, is no stranger to multiple-piano finales.

“I do a lot of boogie woogie festivals in Switzerland,” Wayne said “Usually they have two pianos onstage, and sometimes we do what they call a ‘train wreck’ with three guys on each piano. It’s pretty exciting and a lot of fun.”

Fun is one of the key elements in boogie woogie. That’s apparent on Wayne’s latest album, “Let It Loose,” which features a three-song tribute to blues piano great Amos Milburn and includes Shifty Henry’s classic “Let Me Go Home Whiskey.”

“The boogie came out of the church, some of the gospel playing,” Wayne said. “I think there’s basically three different styles of blues piano – the New Orleans, very rhythmic; the Chicago style, more intense; and West Coast style, which really starts at St. Louis and Kansas City.”

While not denying boogie’s gospel roots, Vest has another take on its origins and its high-energy, crowd-pleasing nature.

“I think it comes from the days when they played in the sawmills and turpentine camps down in the Southeast,” he said. “The piano player was all they had to keep those guys jumping and happy and drinking beer and not walking off the job.”

Wayne was asked to name some old boogie woogie pianists that people might enjoy.

“If they want to go back,” he said, “they should listen to the three fathers of boogie woogie: Pete Johnson, Albert Aamons and Meade ‘Lux’ Lewis.”

Vest also recommends listening to Johnson. “I had to play all his parts one time when I was playing with Big Joe Turner. Johnson was amazing. That ‘Death Ray Boogie’ he played, nobody has topped that.”

But, Wayne said, it’s important to remember there was a time, back in the 1940s, when “everyone was playing boogie woogie, even Count Basie.”

Today, you can find elements of boogie woogie in blues, rock and jazz.

“D.K. plays that rolling, New Orleans-style of boogie as well as anybody,” Vest said. “Mine has kind of a rock ’n’ roll energy and a gospel edge to it – hell-raising camp meeting, tent revival. And Kenny is the traditional, straight-ahead blues. He’s definitely influenced by Fats Domino.

“And both Kenny and D.K. are in tune with the jazz side, too. Kenny, he even played with Charles Mingus.”

The mention of jazz brought up another incredibly rhythmic piano style, stride piano, and the legendary Willie “The Lion” Smith.

“Man, if I could do it like he did,” said Vest, a native of Alabama who has a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt, “I wouldn’t have to put any butter on my bread.”

Wayne, whose next album will be a tribute to Chuck Berry’s longtime collaborator Johnnie Johnson, said stride, like boogie, demands a “very independent left hand.”

“That’s kind of hard,” Wayne said. “I think of it as going like a locomotive with the left hand while the right hand is being more playful.”

That combination of drive and playfulness intrigues Vest, too.

“When we were playing with Paul (deLay), I’d play a boogie woogie number now and then, and people would just kind of go nuts. It wasn’t anything special I was doing; it was the genre. We had to move it to the end of the shows and close with it.”

Following deLay’s death last May, Vest and the other members of the band put out an album titled “The Last of the Best,” which reached No. 7 on national blues charts last summer.

“And that was without any promotion,” Vest said. “I don’t know how it happened. We didn’t even send any to radio stations.”

Tickets to today’s 9 p.m. show are $10; 253-396-9169.

HALF NOTES

 • The Cloverleaf will rock to the beat of 9 Pound Hammer tonight.

 • Dawson’s presents classic rock from Midlife Crisis tonight and Saturday.

 • Jambalaya will have Maia Santell & House Blend on the menu Saturday.

 • Jazzbones will feature the Ed Taylor Quartet in all-ages, smooth jazz and R&B show at 7 p.m. Saturday. Roots-rocker Ian McFeron will play the late show.

 • Fiddler extraordinaire Mark O’Connor brings his “American String Celebration” show to Seattle’s Benaroya Hall at 8 p.m. Sunday; $35-$45 at www.ticketmaster.com.

 • The Swiss has a fun folk-rock show set for Monday with the Blondes opening for the Chymes of Freedom.

 • Rhapsody in Bloom features the terrific folk singer-songwriter Jim Page on Thursday.

rick.nelson@thenewstribune.com