Salt Peanuts is the type of tune to be played by someone who can get around the horn.This is not necessarily the strength of Miles.Perhaps your taste is more to atmosphere and groove.A casual listen to Complete Dial Sessions by Bird and it soon becomes apparent that the excessive number of takes is often due to the fact that Miles was unable to stay in the ensembles at faster tempos.Listen to whatever you like,but be advised a lot of jazz cats are going to keep on playing "whatever in the hell they want to play".Most importantly as Raul always says enjoy the music.
I HATE the song Salt Peanuts
I don't hate that it was ever written (early 40’s) and played by Dizzie Gillespie, just that so many jazz artists insist on covering it since. Why?! It is such a meaningless premise for a song (warning: I am not a music scholar so I might be way off here) to be so revered as it seems to be – play a few bars of a goofy, disjointed "chorus", followed by "play whatever the hell you want, and real fast". I dig jazz and its premise of playing a few bars of a recognizable (or not) song, followed by "play whatever the hell you want." I'm OK with that. But Salt Peanuts is such a thrash of herky-jerky, oddball timing, that it not only throws off any groove laid down prior to it, but it is so odd that I rarely (if ever) hear anyone play it without being sloppy. It is a fast, herky-jerky, sloppy mess of a "chorus". It has no merit to keep on living. Pick/Write some other insignificant, meaningless, nonmelodic notes to play for a few bars to be simply used as an excuse to then "play whatever the hell you want", and play those instead. Why Salt Peanuts?
I hate it so much I have avoided purchasing certain jazz releases which have it included, such as Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet. And I LOVE Miles. I have his Workin', Relaxin', and Cookin' from the same sessions as Steamin', but not Steamin'. (I realize I could simply burn the CD wihtout that one song, but I hate it so much I've yet to buy the CD.)
I say, let's kill the bastard song and extricate it from our libraries! Come on, are ya with me? Let’s go!
I hate it so much I have avoided purchasing certain jazz releases which have it included, such as Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet. And I LOVE Miles. I have his Workin', Relaxin', and Cookin' from the same sessions as Steamin', but not Steamin'. (I realize I could simply burn the CD wihtout that one song, but I hate it so much I've yet to buy the CD.)
I say, let's kill the bastard song and extricate it from our libraries! Come on, are ya with me? Let’s go!