Salt Peanuts

from the LP Jazz at Massey Hall, Debut Records, 1953



These cats were SO high yo… Jazz, to my knowledge, was the first genre of modern music to be inextricably linked with cannabis use, and there’s little doubt as to the immense influence weed had over the nature of the music---not regarding the talent of the players mind you, but more in the unpredictable directions that said chemical influence led them. This concert at Toronto’s Massey Hall is legendary for a reason, just look at the cast of famous characters: Dizzy Gillespie (horn), Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker (sax), Bud Powell (keys), Charlie Mingus (bass), & Max Roach (drums). There may have never been a greater assortment of talent during the bop era than what you hear on this record; that’s not to say that it’s the best singular performance by each one of the players, but to have witnessed such a session would have been about as good as it got back then---and that’s pretty damn good! More research should be done exploring the relationship that cannabis has with creativity, specifically pertaining to the musical experience, because its impact shouldn’t be underestimated.