CAB is a jazz-fusion supergroup formed in 2000 by French-American bassist Bunny Brunel, drummer Dennis Chambers, and guitarist/keyboardist Tony MacAlpine. According to Brunel, the group came together at the request of Tone Center Records, which wanted an album pairing him with Chambers and MacAlpine. The band's name is an acronym of the members' surnames — Chambers, Alpine (from MacAlpine), Brunel — though Brunel has said in interviews that he initially assumed MacAlpine's name started with the letter the acronym needed, only later realizing it worked off "Alpine" rather than "Mac."

Each of the three founders arrived with a fully formed career of his own, and CAB's sound is really the sum of those careers colliding. Bunny Brunel was born March 2, 1950, in Nice, France, and grew up in a household where his mother's love of jazz was a constant presence; he started on piano, studied bowing technique at the Classical Conservatory in Nice, and taught himself bass, absorbing Sam Jones, Ray Brown, Ron Carter, Eddie Gómez, Miroslav Vitouš, and Stanley Clarke along the way. In his early twenties, while backing singer Tania Maria at Ronnie Scott's in London, he was introduced to Chick Corea by former Yes/Moody Blues keyboardist Patrick Moraz. Corea hired him soon after for the album Secret Agent, and Brunel spent close to a decade in Corea's orbit — a period that also produced work with Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Dizzy Gillespie, Al Jarreau, Stevie Wonder, and Stanley Clarke, among others.

Dennis Chambers, born May 9, 1959, in Baltimore, took a very different route into fusion. He started drumming at four and was gigging by six; at eighteen he joined Parliament-Funkadelic, staying with George Clinton's outfit from 1978 to 1985 and absorbing the deep-pocket funk authority that would define his playing. In 1981 he became a house drummer for Sugar Hill Records, playing on early hip-hop sessions including "Rapper's Delight." In 1986 he joined guitarist John Scofield's band, the pivot point that moved him fully into the jazz-fusion world, where his combination of raw power and technical precision — especially his fast bass-drum triplet work — made him one of the most in-demand drummers in the genre. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2001, the year before CAB's Grammy nomination.

Tony MacAlpine, born August 29, 1960, in Springfield, Massachusetts, came from yet another direction entirely: he trained classically as a pianist and violinist before turning to guitar, and built his reputation in the 1980s instrumental-rock scene with albums like Edge of Insanity (1986, featuring Billy Sheehan and ex-Journey drummer Steve Smith) and Maximum Security (1987), records still cited by shred guitarists as formative. He later became a mainstay of the progressive-metal supergroup Planet X alongside keyboardist Derek Sherinian and drummer Virgil Donati, releasing Universe (2000), Live from Oz (2002), and MoonBabies (2002) — the same Virgil Donati who would go on to join CAB itself later in the decade, a direct thread between MacAlpine's prog-metal world and CAB's later lineups.

That mix of pedigrees — Brunel's jazz lineage, Chambers's funk-and-fusion muscle, MacAlpine's classical-technique-meets-metal guitar vocabulary — produced four studio albums and two live albums between 2000 and 2011. CAB (2000) and CAB 2 (2001), both on Tone Center Records, established the core trio, with keyboardist/organist Brian Auger appearing as a guest on the debut and a fully billed member by the second album. CAB 2 earned the group a nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album at the 2002 Grammy Awards. The 2002 live album, self-released simply as Live!, actually documents a different lineup: Chambers stepped aside and Virgil Donati took over drums, joined by keyboardist David Hirschfelder — a configuration that, under the same personnel, also appears to have been reissued under the title Live at the Baked Potato in 2006 and again in 2009 (the connection is strongly suggested by identical personnel and venue, though not independently confirmed track-for-track).

CAB4 (2003, Favored Nations) brought Chambers back on drums and added keyboardist Patrice Rushen alongside Auger, both fully billed. The fourth studio album, Theatre de Marionnettes, followed — sources disagree on the year, with Wikipedia dating it October 20, 2009 and Discogs' release metadata listing 2008; both may be reconciled by a 2008 recording date and 2009 release, but that isn't independently confirmed here, so both years are noted. It reunited Brunel, MacAlpine, Donati, Rushen, and Auger, and added two striking guest credits: Chick Corea on electric piano and French pop icon Michel Polnareff on piano. The band's final release to date, Live On Sunset (2011, Nikaia Records), recorded at SIR Hollywood, again featured Brunel, MacAlpine, and Donati, this time with keyboardist Dennis Hamm rounding out the lineup.

CAB has continued past its classic-era lineup: Wikipedia lists a current billing of Sam Aliano (drums), Mitch Forman (piano), Doug Webb (saxophone), and Brunel — meaning the group persists today as an ongoing Brunel-led vehicle even though MacAlpine and Chambers are no longer part of it.

CAB's sound is a genuine collision of pedigrees rather than a single school: Bunny Brunel's decade-long apprenticeship under Chick Corea gave the band its harmonic sophistication and comfort with open-form improvisation; Dennis Chambers's Parliament-Funkadelic and Sugar Hill roots gave it a deep, groove-first rhythmic foundation more common to funk than to straight-ahead jazz; and Tony MacAlpine's classical training and progressive-metal career (including his time in Planet X alongside eventual CAB drummer Virgil Donati) brought a shredding, technically extreme guitar vocabulary rarely heard inside a jazz-fusion context. The result made CAB a genuine crossover point between the instrumental-fusion and progressive-metal listening communities — virtuosic, riff-driven, and rhythmically forceful in a way that earned it a Grammy nomination while still reading as "guitar hero" music to an audience that might never otherwise seek out contemporary jazz.