Carib – Bob Brookmeyer

In several of his compositions both for combo and big band, Bob Brookmeyer created an exuberantly happy mood particularly by developing simple rhythmic themes. Carib is a great example in a concise small-group setting. The 16-measure head develops a single rhythmic idea through a mostly diatonic set of changes; though there's a bit of blues scale in the melody, the general impression is a very major-key song. Carib is in an unusual meter: 3/2; on the recording the rhythm section plays a samba-like groove, with the rhythm of the melody used as a sort of clave.

Bob Brookmeyer was often quite creative with the solo forms of small-group songs. Solos on Carib are based on a simplified version of the head changes, but doubled up in form with a second 16 measures which have the same changes as the first 16 but a half step higher. There is a four-measure drum intro; our C lead sheet shows what Mel Lewis played on the recording, a crescendo on mostly closed hi-hat setting up the groove. The coda starts four measures before the end of the head: the last phrase is played at a quieter dynamic and an octave lower, and is then tagged again in the original octave ending in a short hit on the last downbeat. On the recording, four measures of drum solo separate the last solo chorus from the out head.

In the solo chorus we show six quarter-note slashes to a measure; this is the equivalent in 3/2 of showing four slashes in cut-time (2/2).