His magazine was approaching its fifth birthday, and Hugh Hefner wanted to celebrate in a big way. The founder of Playboy does not think small, so in August of 1959, he had George Weinimpresario of the Newport Jazz Festivalcreate a weekend of music. It was a total success: 68,000 people crowded into Chicago Stadium for the first Playboy Jazz Festival. Twenty years later, Hefner did it again, this time in Los Angeles. Hes been staging his jazz festival at the Hollywood Bowl ever since.
On June 13 and 14, you can find the 83-year-old Hefnerand his new girlfriendsseated in the center box of the front row at the Bowl, enjoying the music he loves best. His favorite memories? We had only to ask, and Hef was off and running. Heres what he told us:
I was in World War II, and when I came back, I expected a celebration. Like the Roaring Twenties: flappers and jazz. But that didnt happen. Instead, we had McCarthyism, the Cold War, the House Un-American Activities Committee and skirt lengths going down instead of up. I was appalled...
There had to be more to life than sitting in front of the TV, hanging out with the guys and going bowling, so I created a magazine that reflected an alternative. The Playboy reader was a cool consumerthat was the message. So the Jazz Festival was a natural...
Fifty years later, my favorite festival is still the first. We managed to put together the most iconic group of artists: Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald, Ahmad Jamal and the big bands Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Stan Kenton. Was I starstruck? You bet. Those people were big influences. I was like a freshman, and they were the seniors....I was especially looking forward to the big bands.
Thats the music I grew up with. Back then, jazz was the popular music of America. It was written by Gershwin and Berlinyou didnt think of it as jazz. As Duke Ellington said, theres just good music and bad. Its true what Chris Rock says, that the music youre listening to when you first start having sex is the music you love all your life. I feel fortunate that jazz was what I heard that yearand I feel sorry for kids today who will look back in their declining years and have nothing of quality to cherish...
