Salt Peanuts! Salt Peanuts!

[PDEE]

There's a Jack Teagrden recording of a tune called Sherman Shout, that uses the Salt Peanuts octave jump as an intregal part of the theme. ( thanks to Berry gin for helping my Memory on this... as I get older there's only one thing shorter than my memory ).. its not a complicated thing, but the timing and rhythm make it instantly definable.

Sherman Shout was recorded by T as a transcription Jan 1942..though The Lord places it one month earlier in Dec. 1941.. this seems to be the only recording of the tune.

Diz's Salt Peanuts first recording is said to be a Georgie Auld record ( with Shavers and Hawk ).. May 17.. 1944, and Diz's first record in his own name came Jan 1945.

So the questions

Did Diz really write this?( yes I know its only part of his tune)

Was the Teagarden a pick up on what had been heard.. the tune is credited to Phil Moore?

Maybe this was one of those Jam Session riffs that everybody was familiar with, that became part of the natural "turn of events" of the day.. Just like Mop Mop / Boff Boff and later the Theme...

Anybody know for sure? Does this riff show up elsewhere before Diz?

When did Diz compose the tune?

[Harold_Z]

Originally posted by PDEE
...Maybe this was one of those Jam Session riffs that everybody was familiar with, that became part of the natural "turn of events" of the day.. Just like Mop Mop / Boff Boff and later the Theme...

That's were my money is.

[orroonie]

Lucky Millinder's "Little John Special " on his " Apollo Jump" album included a riff which became Diz and Klooks "Salt Peanuts"

It was released in 1942.

[PDEE]

The Lucky Millinder little John, uses much more of the Salt Peanuts theme. Diz was in the band.. maybe he arranged it.. or even wrote it.. it's credited to Millinder. It was recorded July 29 1942.

Prior to this, july 24, Woody Herman recorded a piece written and arranged for him by Diz.. Down Under. At the end of the Theme statement the trumpets suggest Salt Peanuts, but the guitar solo ( by Hy White)starts with the Salt Peanuts jump.

So Sherman Shout seems to be the earliest recording of the phrase.

[clinthopson]

Bird says "we'll now play a tune by one of my constituents, Dizzy Gillespie" at the Massey Hall concert.

[John L]

Sherman Grabowsky sold salted peanuts at the Polo Grounds back in the day. He was known for his wail in the bleachers. Tea must have heard him one day and copped.

[HotJazz Fran]

It can be a good (and IS a useful way) of composing, or finding a tune, to take a part of what has been done before and develop it on his own personnal way. And your question reminds me of an earlyer exampleof that, in the 20's.
Carmichael says, in his autobiography, that he would take something in a song he had written before, and find another song from this extract. he gives the example of a improvised piano solo he had to do in the stress of recording for the first time. (it was washboard blues, too short of 20seconds, and they told him to add a piano solo. he was terrorised : hands shaking, blank face, dry mouth, and everything) he played anything, almost inconscient, praying and waiting for the other to play again with him.
he took his solo later and worked on it, and it became the quiet "LazyRiver".
And he recorded it with Louis Armstrong on Louis first solo record, with stardust, and others of his songs.
they recorded two takes of Rockin'chair that appear on this album. On the second take, while singing the words "HC:send me Sweet chariot…/ LA : Oh…sweet chariot… /HC : for the end, of the trouble I've seen / LA : nobody knows the trouble you've seen… / … ol'rockin'chair got me, ect
That "in the groove" improvised reply by louis Armstrong, in 1929 or30, became later a great and famous song.

[HotJazz Fran]

And Jack Teagarden is playing on this album.
And on the first carmichael 's solo albums too, along with the Dorsey brothers, Bix Beiderbecke, Benny Goodman, Gene Kruppa, Lang and Venuti, ect.
What I mean is that it was very frequent at that time. I think it came with/after the success of Rapsodhy in Blue, played by the Whiteman's orchestra, that convinced everybody that the American popular répertoire could be turned into high class music. And they played any idea into songs on a dancing rythm, and exploited all the répetoire into different dance style.

[HotJazz Fran]

If the web master allows me to,
for me the roots of Dizzy's : "Salt'peanuts", the way he always say it twice, even the way Diz plays, and many things, would let me think he has a early influence by VANCE DIXON AND HIS PENCILS, a black clarinetist who was also a comical musician, and who played a comical-clownesque show on stage, and had a number called "HOT PEANUTS", wich sounds quite close to Diz'"Salt Peanuts".

I let you juge of how it can have "influenced", inspired Dizzy, or not.
You can listen to "HOT PEANUTS"by Vance Dixon here, if you want :
http://www.redhotjazz.com/pencils.html

[Noj]

Fascinating thread. Are there other songs that have a variety of names and/or arguments over authoring claims?

[Brad]

In the book Quintet of the Year, the author, Geoffrey Haydon, implies that during late 1943 when Diz had a gig at the Onyx Club, during the daytime, the musicians would analyze their discoveries and write things down. Gillespie worked up the riff in 'Little John Special' and added a hiccuping vocal refrain 'Salt Peanuts'. I don't think that necessarily detracts from what's been said before, especially in P.D.'s original thread.

[HotJazz Fran]

Are there other songs that have a variety of names and/or arguments over authoring claims?

There are many examples in early "hot"jazz, 1924/29 when music had to make people dance. Everybody was playing stuff learned from records, and many standarts had unknown authors (unknown for the musicians). Music was mainly a matter of NUMBERS PERFORMED ON STAGE with music. "Music" itself was part of the DANCES the orchestras played, during their numbers. And was merely a style, based on copying, records didn't bring back any money
Irving Mills protected a lots of composer and young musicians by having their "music" written, orchestrated, and selling scores co-signed with the authors. he even had an orchestra so he could play, record, and distribute several versions, He was more a legal protector than an editor.

Duke Ellington often took ideas of every kind, in his orchestra or anywhere, and get them played by his orchestra. They gave to those basis different and unexpected variations and "colors", all far from the original. Lots of exemples in his huge 1927/28/29 production. There again, it's more a matter of style, of how it is played, than a matter of recorded music you can listen to, at home, in a today "german romantic"attitude.

MOOD INDIGO led to argue between him ("I found that yesterday evening, sat at the kitchen table") and Barney Bigard ("of course, I've been playing it all afternoon, yesterday") and it is now signed : Ellington-Bigard-Mills. But many other musicians of the orchestra sayed they thought of it first.
That Lazy River Carmichael wrote, became five different pieces, under five different names, recorded the same day. (Cincinnati daddy,and LazyDuke are the closest to the original, yet it is some "Great Ellington", and Carmichael who worked for the Duke before Strayhorn was really proud of that.
"I want to be the one that writes what the Duke plays, so noblely"

it reminds me of another piece (Cherokee?) by mingus or Parker wich is (Kokomo?) from Ellington's play of something more ancient...
Most Improvisations are based on ideas or systems prepared-thought in advance. so they are often just semi-impro, on another known half they fly around. John Coltrane and his musicians knew by heart "my favorite things" and could not make a mistake, though it is far from the Kern&hammerstein's song.

[Brad]

Hot Jazz Fran,

Good post but I'm not sure about your reference to Koko being derived from a Cherokee written or played by Duke. Cherokee was written by Ray Noble and it was that song that provided the basis for Bird's Koko. Now, did Ray Noble get it from Duke. No idea.

[HotJazz Fran]

I'm not sure myself of anything about that.
it comes up to my mind as i was wrtting the post. A very vague souvenir.
But you're right, next time I remember so few and so confused, I'll shut up.

QUOTE : Cherokee was written by Ray Noble and it was that song that provided the basis for Bird's Koko.

YEAHhh.. exactly !!... you're right.

[Brad]

Hot Jazz Fran,

I certainly wasn't suggesting that you shutup and hope you didn't take it that way. I think your posts are very good and informative. Keep them coming.