Sippin' At Bells is an instrumental bebop 12-bar blues in F, credited solely to Miles Davis, who wrote and arranged the material for his group. The original recording was made on 14 August 1947 at Harry Smith Studios in New York by the Miles Davis All Stars: Davis on trumpet, Charlie Parker on tenor saxophone, John Lewis on piano, Nelson Boyd on bass and Max Roach on drums. Unlike Parker's usual sessions, which were not rehearsed, the group went through the material twice beforehand. The master take was issued in 1948 as Savoy 934, a 78 rpm single coupled with "Milestones".
The tune has since been recorded by many artists, including Sonny Clark (1958), Hank Jones, Woody Shaw, Roy Haynes, Joe Lovano and Anthony Braxton, and it is treated as a jazz standard. Its form is the twelve-bar blues.
