Eric Dolphy w/The Platters

[JSngry]

http://adale.org/Discographies/RockAllNight.html

Recieved via e-mail:

Dear Jazz friends.

Searching for information about unwritten things is searching for a needle in a haystack. Sometimes you find something and than a long time nothing. The internet is the place to put your request on, because you get in touch with all kinds of collectors.

As I was informed about the time Eric Dolphy, had to take every job for a living, between 1953-1959, I also heard that Eric was playing on several records with the Platters. Agent, producer composer and manager of Eric Dolphy and the Platters, was Buck Ram.

A few months ago I found a movie "Rock Of Night". Musical director was Buck Ram and the Platters were also in the movie.

I was very happy to see and hear the band behind the well known vocal group, the Platters.

I also can see, Eric Dolphy plays in the band, not on flute, alto-sax or bass-clarinet but on baritone sax.

On the following link, http://adale.org/Discographies/RockAllNight.html you can see the story, and some frames from the movie.

My request is: do you recognise the musicians in the band?.

We know Eric Dolphy is on baritone sax, Eddie Beal is on piano, but do you recognise the other musicians in the band?

Jazz collectors and the Eric Dolphy researchers, will be happy too, to have more information about this session in the movie.

We shall be pleased to receive your information.

Sincerely,

Paul Karting

That site is definitely worth looking at. Here's a sample photo:

And there's more...

Edited January 24, 2006 by JSngry

[7/4]

Holy frickin crap. I never knew!

[Rosco]

Wow!!

[.:.impossible]

Cool find!

[clifford_thornton]

Weird. The Platters, as in THE Platters?!?

[JSngry]

Yep. Go to the site and watch the film clips.

Also note - the Ed Townsend sessions that are listed as w/Dolphy & Gerald Wilson are by the same Ed Townsend who became Marvin Gaye's co-producer in his last years.

[JSngry]

There seems to be some dispute as to whether or no Dolphy is the soloist/obbligattoist on the Platters sides listed. My question is this - how can we know for sure one way or the other? Dolphy would probably have been "playing the style", so easily recognizing him might be all but impossible. Might be. And if it doesn't really sound like Dolphy, even if it is, if he's just entirely role-playing, what difference does it make?

Well, ok, if it's Dolphy on tenor, any style tenor, I want to hear it...

[clifford_thornton]

In the liner notes to one of the New Jazz LPs, Dolphy is listed as having in his arsenal (though not playing them regularly) tenor and baritone, IIRC. I'm sure whatever album I'm thinking of is in a box, else I'd go find it and back up my claims.

[brownie]

Wish I still had the Platters albums I got rid of years ago although I understand Dolphy is nowhere to be heard on the group's recordings he is reported now to have taken part in!

[Guest]

I too have never heard about this, although i find the news pleasing. LA being such a hotbest of musical activity on many different levels- i am pleased to hear dolphy got some session work in w/ popular vocal recording group the Platters. I wonder if dolphy played with other vocal grops in his younger years- his community had many different such groups.

On a side note i have been listening to my Drifters Atlantic Hits collection a lot lately. even though ive heard it a million times, the melody of the great hit "under the boardwalk" is still very pleasing to me, and has a quality to it which rarely appeared in pop music. Years years later, i am pretty sure warren zevon intentionally wrote a song in the "boardwalk" style, called Carmelita, from his self titled record.

[John L]

Interesting, although I don't find it to be so surprising. LA in the early 50s was a very fluid situation between jazz and R&B. Lots of jazz musicians took part in R&B sessions. Even Ben Webster made a few records like that.

I guess that we can add this to the list of many recordings from the early-mid 50s that Dolphy MAY be playing on.

[JSngry]

Managed to procure a copy of ROCK ALL NIGHT, and dig this - there is an instrumental played early on in the film, immediately following The Platters' two numbers, that has a two chorus bari solo that sounds like it MIGHT be Dolphy playing R&B. The swing of the player is not incompatable w/Dolphy's. And there's fleeting moments of tonal/harmonic manipulation that again would not be incompatible with how I'd imagine Dolphy would play on a strictly commercial R&B/Jump Blues type number. That's definitely him on screen, but is that actually him playing? We'll probably never know, but it's intriguing, if ultimately useless, to speculate that this might be an addition to the Dolphy discography.

Anyway, if you're an insecure Dolphy completist and want to leave nothing to chance, you can get the movie here: http://www.thevideobeat.com/store/product-104.html

[Luciano]

The musicians are (see at: http://adale.org/Discographies/EarlyRec.html)

Eddie Beal (pno); Herman Mitchell (gtr); Clarence Daniels (bass); Eric Dolphy (baritone saxophone); Jimmy Owens (drums); The Platters (vocals); Robbie Robinson (ts).

Greetings

Luciano

[medjuck]

Somehow missed this thread.  I have a friend who as a teenager hung  with the Platters. (His license plate is "ONLY U".)  I'll try to see if he was around for any of this and if he remembers Dolphy. 

[Rooster_Ties]

News to me as well. Better (10 years, in my case) late than never!!

[Big Beat Steve]

On 19.2.2006 at 6:57 PM, JSngry said:

Managed to procure a copy of ROCK ALL NIGHT, and dig this - there is an instrumental played early on in the film, immediately following The Platters' two numbers, that has a two chorus bari solo that sounds like it MIGHT be Dolphy playing R&B. The swing of the player is not incompatable w/Dolphy's. And there's fleeting moments of tonal/harmonic manipulation that again would not be incompatible with how I'd imagine Dolphy would play on a strictly commercial R&B/Jump Blues type number. That's definitely him on screen, but is that actually him playing? We'll probably never know, but it's intriguing, if ultimately useless, to speculate that this might be an addition to the Dolphy discography.

 

Anyway, if you're an insecure Dolphy completist and want to leave nothing to chance, you can get the movie here: http://www.thevideobeat.com/store/product-104.html

Now since this thread came up again after all these years ...

An addition - better late than never ...

So WHICH track by the Eddie Beal combo (feat Eric Dolphy) is this, then?

The soundtrack LP of that movie (Mercury MG 20293) is/was available again more recently as a facsimile LP duplicating the original cover. No idea where it came from and who reissued it - but it does not look like any of the Spanish reissues at all as no mention of Fresh Sound (or any other reissuer) is to be found anywhere, neither in the fine print nor anwhere on the label which duplicates the original Mercury label (minus the "deep groove", of course). Might well have been a shady reissue done by some small "entrepreneur" within the 50s rock'n'roll/rockabilly subculture in the 80s.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Big Beat Steve

[medjuck]

 

On 11/22/2016 at 11:46 PM, medjuck said:

Somehow missed this thread.  I have a friend who as a teenager hung  with the Platters. (His license plate is "ONLY U".)  I'll try to see if he was around for any of this and if he remembers Dolphy. 

 So I asked him if he remembered many of the players and he replied:  "The one I remember is a bass player who they called Red because he had red hair.  He was there many times I attended esp. at the basement of Capital records in Hollywood."

 Red Callender?

Edited December 1, 2016 by medjuck