Please Send Me Someone To Love / Danger Zone

I've been hitting some of the local jams. Bari "sax maniac" Ray DiFazio talked me into it, and it's been fun. I enjoy watching and listening as Ray "wrestles that alligator," and the crowds love it, too. And the jams are crowded... Every Wednesday it's the Club Fox in Redwood City if you're anywhere within a 25 mile radius. Thursday there's a funk jam (!) at the QuarterNote in Sunnyvale, Aki Kumar's excellent blues jam at Little Lou's Barbecue in Campbell, and Sunday 4pm Terry Hiatt kicks off his popular jam at the Pioneer in Woodside. I used to gig regularly at the Pioneer with Red Archibald -- I described the crowd then as a curious mix of ex-hippies, cowboys and defense lawyers -- but it's a little more homogenous now, mature blues fans for the most part. (There are also Monday and Wednesday jams at the QuarterNote...)

I encounter a little difficulty because I'm a sax player who also sings. There are more than enough vocalists and singing guitar players to fill the bill, and these are really "open mic" formats where one has to sign up. (Some years back I caused a flap at Kelly Park's vocal open mic night in Alameda because I was invited up to play tenor and sang instead, in essence jumping the line. In my defense, there were already four tenors on stage taking choruses on Honky Tonk so I decided to sing the virtually unknown lyrics from Honky Tonk part III.) Also, it's hard to direct the combo with a tenor in your mouth, so I rarely get to sing. No big whup though, I lost all desire to grab the vocal mic after Kaye Bohler tore the place up last night at Club Fox - she was sitting in, mind you -- Taylor P. Collins warmed the place up and then closed it down with two marvelous sets of her own.

The clubs are for dancing and listening, and up tempo numbers predominate. John "Blues" Boyd will alternate "a shuffle, then a teardropper" but his persona is so strong that he can pull it off. If I get to sing it's best to do a generic shuffle in the key of G like Jimmy Vaughn's "That's My Life" and Junior Parker's "In The Dark" (key of D) is too slow. I like the key of Bb and do a few numbers in Eb minor -- not good keys for a guitar based blues jam. I work out most of my arrangements on acoustic piano, and there's almost never an available piano. Biscuits and Blues in San Francisco, and the Morris Graves Museum in Eureka are the only places I've been able to play a "real" piano. I like it best when there's an accomplished pianist on the set, love it when I lay a chart down and they're like "Cool, man" -- they look it over quickly immediately get the gist of the arrangement -- I can just sing and play then, no worries!

Here's a chart I wrote out for my arrangement of Please Send Me Someone To Love, by Percy Mayfield, also done by Harvey and the Moonglows. Both their versions are in G, but I don't have a nice warm baritone like Mr. Mayfield or Harvey Fuqua, so I moved it up to Bb. I use the same chart for Danger Zone, too, another Percy Mayfield composition that was covered by Ray Charles on the flip side of Hit The Road Jack.

The chart is not sacrosanct, hence the question mark in brackets, and one might consider E diminished as more appropriate than C7b9 with E in the bass, or let's use Ab7(+11) in measure 4... Chords are a guide -- there's room for interpretation. Intro based on last ending -- that too can be simplified "on the spot" if need be.