Sleeping Giant – Cecil McBee

An uptempo song in a modal style, Sleeping Giant is essentially a 24-measure blues. The basic key is F minor, but the chords are quite specific: the tonic is B♭7sus/F and thus the key could also be seen as B♭. The melody starts simply with long notes, but is punctuated by angular pentatonic lines. The head is actually 32 measures long; after the "turnaround" B section (the third eight-measure phrase), there are eight more measures of melody over B♭7sus/F going into the solos.

The solo form is 24 measures. There are rhythm section stop-time figures on the "turnaround" of the head; these are also played at the end of the last chorus for each soloist. We show these rhythm section figures as starting with a chord on the downbeat of the first measure on the head, and with a drum hit and break here in the solo chorus. However, on the recording there is a chord on the downbeat of this measure in some solo choruses, and no chord here in the out head.

Our lead sheet starts on the melody. On the recording, pianist David Berkman solos for three choruses before the head (with bass and drums), playing the stop-time figures in the last eight measures of the third chorus. Our audio clip starts on the last eight of the piano solo.