Playboy's jazz fest celebrates 30 years

Bill Cosby (right, with Hugh Hefner) will again host the Playboy Jazz Festival, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this weekend. (Reed saxon/associated press)

Hugh Hefner couldn't think of a better way to celebrate Playboy magazine's 25th anniversary than by throwing a big bash at the Hollywood Bowl featuring his favorite performers who knew how to swing while keeping their clothes on.

To produce the event, he turned to jazz impresario George Wein, who had created the first outdoor jazz festival in Newport, R.I., in 1954, the same year Hefner launched his culture-changing men's lifestyle magazine.

The inaugural 1979 Playboy Jazz Festival packed the Hollywood Bowl for both days with a lineup that featured some of Hefner's favorite artists, such as Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, and Count Basie, as well as contemporary jazz stars like Weather Report, Chick Corea, and Herbie Hancock.

"The response to it was so phenomenal that here we are 30 years later," said the 82-year-old Hefner in advance of this year's event on Saturday and Sunday. "I've had a lot of things to be proud of in my life but nothing more quite frankly than the jazz festival.

"It speaks to the best of who we are - a community coming together without questions in terms of ethnicity or race in a joyous way to celebrate being alive."

Hefner's passion for jazz goes back to his high school years in Chicago in the 1940s, when, under the name "Hep Hef," he wrote a column for the school paper reviewing the latest big-band swing records. From Playboy's first issue, jazz was written about and treated with a respect not found in other nonmusic publications.

Hefner, with the help of his young assistant Richard Rosenzweig, now president of Playboy Jazz Festivals, Inc., promoted the magazine's fifth anniversary in 1959 by putting on the nation's first indoor jazz festival, which drew about 70,000 people over three days to the Chicago Stadium.

That event brought together a who's who of jazz history, with Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald, Ahmad Jamal, and the big bands of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Stan Kenton, among others.

Hefner was too busy with his magazine to repeat the festival back then. But after relocating to Los Angeles, the memories inspired him to hold another festival to mark Playboy's 25th anniversary.

Hefner's longtime friend Bill Cosby, who once had notions of becoming a jazz drummer, needed little persuading to emcee the festival provided he wouldn't be expected to do any comedy routines. Cosby will be returning as master of ceremonies for the 27th time this weekend.

Among those appearing on opening night in 1979 was Hancock, who this year will be setting a festival record with his 11th appearance. That night Hancock performed publicly for the first time with Joni Mitchell. This weekend the pianist will be headlining the festival, performing tunes from his Mitchell tribute CD, "River: The Joni Letters," which won the Grammy for album of the year.

Hancock says Playboy remains one of his favorite festivals because it's an all-day party with people bringing their picnic baskets and kids.

"I also get a chance to hang out with other musicians I've worked with or admire," Hancock said. "And Cosby makes it even more relaxed and comfortable like an old pair of shoes."