The Serpent's Tooth is an instrumental jazz tune by Miles Davis, its sole credited composer, and it has no lyrics. Davis recorded it on 30 January 1953 with Sonny Rollins and Charlie Parker on tenor saxophone, Walter Bishop on piano, Percy Heath on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. The released version is take 1 of that session. It first appeared in 1956 on the Prestige album Collectors' Items, which was the first release of the 1953 recording. The tune is in the bop style.
Later versions include those by Victor Feldman (1958), Lin Halliday and Al Molina (1991), the SWR Big Band with Phil Woods (1996), Wycliffe Gordon and Marty Erickson (2008), Chano Domínguez (2012) and Mark Sherman (2012).
