Brent Bear
PLAYBOY JAZZ FESTIVAL HISTORY 1979
Sarah Vaughan with the Count Basie Orchestra at the first-ever Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl
FOUR DECADES OF SUNSHINE: PLAYBOY JAZZ AT 40
Dianne Reeves
without the Playboy Jazz Festival, and it’s hard to imagine the Playboy Jazz Festival without the Hollywood Bowl. As it happens, there was no rain at that first Playboy Jazz Festival in 1979, just as there hasn’t been in any year since. In fact, the festival’s sunny setting is a perfect fit for the bright, joyous programs it’s hosted in its forty-year history (not to mention the epic five-show run of the first Playboy Jazz Festival at Chicago Stadium in 1959). continued on pg. 46
José Galvez
Forty years ago, when Dick Rosenzweig was helping Hugh Hefner plan the first-ever Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, the recent transplant from the magazine’s Chicago headquarters had one question: Would he need to buy rain insurance? The L.A. Weather Bureau’s response: “You’re not from here, right?” Rosenzweig laughs as he recounts this story, both at the memory itself, and at how preposterous it all now seems: It’s hard to imagine the Hollywood Bowl
1989
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