# How Hugh Hefner and Playboy Changed the Face of Music: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/09/29/hugh-hefner-playboy-changed-face-music-video/
- Published: 2017-09-29T10:23:54+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Playboy_ impresario Hugh Hefner, an important advocate for jazz through his magazine,
festival, nightclubs, TV show, compilations and books, died on Sept. 27 at his iconic
home, the Playboy Mansion, at age 91. A terrific account of Hefner’s contributions
to jazz culture can be found in Patty Farmer’s 2015 book, _Playboy Swings_, the 
_JT _review of which, by Jeff Tamarkin, we’re reposting here. Also check out the
_JT _review of the most recent Playboy Jazz Festival. __ _**

For _Playboy_ magazine founder Hugh Hefner, music, specifically the jazz that he
adored, was always part of a greater game plan. From the start “Hef” envisioned 
his venture defining a total lifestyle, of which the flagship magazine and its nothing-
to-the-imagination centerfolds were never the whole story. _Playboy_, since its 
1953 inception, published quality prose, and music journalism and jazz-focused readers’
polls were part of the mix. The very first issue — the one offering then-scandalous,
now-epochal nude photos of Marilyn Monroe — included a feature article on the Dorsey
brothers, and in subsequent issues writers and critics regularly weighed in on the
pros and cons of current jazz, recommending with authority the LPs that every hip
_Playboy_ reader should spin at his next cocktail party.

The 320-page _Playboy Swings_, by Patty Farmer with contributions from jazz writer
Will Friedwald and an introduction by Newport festival impresario George Wein, tells
the story of the Playboy enterprise’s love affair with jazz, and explores the idea
of the music as an integral component of a swanky branded lifestyle. Monty Alexander,
the Jamaican-born pianist who found lucrative work at the New York Playboy Club,
one of many Hefner would open up as his empire expanded, immediately understood 
what Hef and his associates were after: “The message was, if you’re a playboy, you’ve
got to have a beautiful motor car, a convertible with the top down; you’ve got to
smoke the best pipe; and you’ve got to have a good jazz album collection.”

It wasn’t long after _Playboy_ magazine took off that jazz artists and their handlers
caught on to the gift Hefner had handed them. (Tony Bennett was an early fan and
became a close friend.) By 1959, Hefner was ready to test out the idea of a Playboy
Jazz Festival, staging the initial event in Chicago, the company’s first home base.
It would be another two decades — by which time the now-massive Playboy brand had
long since expanded to television and other media — before he’d give it another 
shot, moving it to the Hollywood Bowl. This time it took, and the Playboy Jazz Festival
has been held there annually ever since.

Farmer’s exhaustively researched and breezily voiced volume leaves no doubt that
Hefner and the Playboy crew took their commitment to the music seriously. In addition
to the annual festival, Hefner’s clubs, beginning in 1960, provided quality bookings
for musicians, treating them with a level of respect they didn’t always find elsewhere,
in venues that trumped the dives many were accustomed to.

None of this occurred in a vacuum, of course, and Farmer deftly weaves in the role
of the Bunnies (and the _de rigueur_ sexism to which they were exposed); the comedians,
actors and other celebrities who populated the Playboy world; the utter surrealism
of it all (imagine, if you will, Ravi Shankar playing a Playboy Club — it happened);
and issues related to race. The author, whose previous book was _The Persian Room
Presents_, details the opening of the New Orleans Playboy Club in 1961, where “Black
Bunnies were out of the question, as were black entertainers, no matter how talented
or well known. … The application process was designed to discourage black members,
and those who showed up with a key were refused admission.” But elsewhere the company
broke racial barriers. At the Chicago club, also in ’61, Hefner requested that comedian
Dick Gregory perform as a replacement for Professor Irwin Corey. The evening led
to a lengthy and successful stand, exceedingly rare for an African-American performer
at a predominantly white nightclub.

One more note: It would be negligent not to at least mention Bill Cosby, who hosted
the Playboy Jazz Festival from 1979 through 2012. There is no reportage in the book
of recent allegations against Cosby — his accusers include a former Bunny — nor 
does this reviewer believe there should be. (Farmer has said that Cosby declined
to be interviewed, and one former Playboy employee is quoted as saying the comedian“
worked for the clubs out of loyalty to Hef,” forgoing his usual fee.) The book was
likely completed prior to the recent media explosion, but either way, Cosby had 
left his emcee position before most of the allegations became public, and his history
with the festival was an important factor in its success.

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