Salt Peanuts

Salt Peanuts ( German: " Peanuts " ) is the name and title of a piece of music, composed in 1942 by jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and drummer and vibraphonist Kenny Clarke. It is one of the select list of popular jazz standards, referred to as compositions of the genre and is a major compilation of such pieces of music, represented the Real Book.

The composition and its history

Salt Peanuts is a riffartiges and swing - oriented uptempo track with 32 bars in the form AABA, for his lecture a very fast pace is provided ( prestissimo ). The rhythm of the original recordings of Gillespie presented with an octave jump syllables salt pea -nuts has an equivalent in a melodic figure of the theme (bars 3 and 4). The uniqueness of this bebop title is the fact that its text consists only of the words " Salt peanuts, salt peanuts ". Many other bebop pieces are instrumental works; any singing in it is usually presented in the onomatopoeic scat style.

Before Gillespie himself Salt Peanuts recorded, Count Basie played the six notes existing basic motif in an instrumental phrase on the piano for his recording of Basie Boogie ( Columbia / OKeh ) on 2 July 1941. During the same year he played the title again live in performance at the jazz club Cafe Society.

Meanwhile Salt Peanuts is one of the classic jazz standards of bebop. One of the first recordings of Salt Peanuts under this title, recorded on May 11, 1945 Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Al Haig, Curly Russell and Sid Catlett was published on Dizzy Gillespie Album Shaw 'Nuff of 1946. The most famous recording of the title comes from the legendary album Live at Massey Hall, Toronto, 1953, when Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker once played together the classic title of Bop - time, accompanied by Max Roach, Bud Powell and Charles Mingus.

In the 1950s, the title of Miles Davis and John Coltrane on their marathon session for the Prestige label was added ( Steamin 'with the Miles Davis Quintet, 1957). Coleman also Hawkins, Bud Powell, Philly Joe Jones and Donald Byrd took interpretations of the piece Publications to trade under its own name.

Literature / source

• Carlo Bohländer et al. Reclams jazz leader. 4th edition Reclam, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-15-010355- X.