Music Analysis: Stablemates By Benny Golson

“Stablemates” was a jazz standard written by Benny Golson, a tenor saxophonist. The piece begins with a drum solo filled with fast rolls and heavily accented beats before rest of the band joins in, which becomes a head duet between vibes and guitar. Montgomery then starts his solo with sixteenth-notes and gracefully plays through the chord progression. His motifs are more noticeable in this piece, using specific intervals that match the circle of fifths, along with playing a series of notes in a descending scale based on the current chord. Montgomery also freely uses more repeated phrases to enhance his solo and create a memorable feel to the fast-paced song. The breaks between his phrases are also a lot shorter, giving little time for breath

and instead gracefully racing through until the end.
Jackson plays his solo next, starting with a motif he later returns to before playing a series of arpeggios, moving up and down the vibraphone in sixteenth-notes. His phrases are far longer in this piece, putting little time to breaks between each part of his solo. Jackson does spend more time in the higher range of the vibes however, and uses little damper pedal because of how swift his notes move. Because of how he chose to play his solo, Jackson’s intervals were shorter compared to Montgomery, moving only in seconds and thirds, and only skipping to fourths and fifths during the short breaks mentioned before between phrases.
Kelly’s piano solo begins with repeated notes, creating a motif before playing around in one octave in the higher register of the piano. At times, normally on the downbeat of a chord change, he will play the chord before beginning another phrase, almost using the chord to breathe momentarily. Kelly also chooses not to stray too far from a two-octave range, playing only a melodic line until the end where he chose to add chords into his solo. To maintain the swiftness in his own solo, he follows Jackson’s technique of staying at a close range, not only using certain intervals such as fourths and fifths but repeating them often to make better use of time in his solo while still playing creatively.
The piano solo in the beginning of “Stairway to the Stars” creates a ballad mood for listeners to enjoy. The melody of the head is introduced by Jackson on vibes, who toys with the melody and ornaments it heavily as he progresses onward into a faster moving feel of chromatic sixteenth-notes and arpeggiated eighth-note triplets. Jackson also favors grace notes in his solo, which he uses before playing his descending scales and arpeggios, which may be used as mental prep to play his next idea other than well-placed ornaments. The solos are also much shorter in this ballad, leaving little space for Jackson to continue, which explains the easy-to-follow resolve of his solo for Montgomery to begin his on guitar.
The solo begins with a base note to refer to, which he does often when repeating several phrases and ideas back to back.

Montgomery also plays swung eighths more in this solo and slows down the feel of the piece, leisurely taking his time with his phrases. Although he repeats the base note of his solo often, he ornaments around it to keep listener interest throughout. He also changes the base note later, repeating the phrases as a motif before expanding further into his solo. Closer to the end, Montgomery also uses more difficult rhythms on one note to change his style for a short time before giving Jackson the space to play another solo in the

ballad.
Jackson’s solo this time is far more free, using the whole range of his instrument and maintaining the eighth-note triplet feel throughout the entire beginning, and shredding it through until he slows down into swung-eighth notes to form a melody.

He also continues up until the end of the piece, where at that point his phrases are cut a bit shorter and he slows down in his choice of notes, playing repeated notes in arpeggios and ending smoothly with the others.
“Blue Roz” starts with a guitar and vibe unison head with percussive rhythm section accompanying them. The feel of the piece is like “S.K.J.” where the head is a descending melodic line. However, the sound changes into its own memorable piece when everyone cuts out for Jackson to begin his vibraphone solo by himself. The scales in Jackson’s solo are more chromatic, and he also uses more repeated notes before flurrying into other scales and arpeggios to show off in his solo. Even in his swung eighth-note patterns, he finds time to ornament longer notes before ending his solo for

Montgomery.
The guitar solo is cut into shorter phrases, Montgomery taking his time with his melodic lines. Being more comfortable with eighth-note triplets, Montgomery uses the rhythm for both descending scales and arpeggios. He also avoids moving passed two octaves in his solo at first, gliding from one note to the next before picking up the pace toward the end. He ends without playing any extra runs or ornamenting any of his last phrases notes, simply completing his solo on the tonic before Kelly begins his solo.
Kelly’s practice of melody in right hand and chord progression in left hand is once again heard in his solo, but he also ornaments his notes a bit more here than in any other song so far. He plays trills every so often and uses turns before playing a scale or arpeggio in some of his phrases. The solo begins at the middle of the piano, more toward where he was playing the piece’s chords at first. It is later in the piece that when Kelly ascends, he also picks up the pace and chooses to play more runs and add a third over the melody to hold onto listener interest.