Diane Varga Has Jazz in Her Genes

It is hard to imagine a more fitting background for a jazz promoter than Diane Varga’s. Her grandfather, Andrae Nordskog, launched Nordskog Records in 1921, and a year later made history by putting on wax the first-ever recordings by a black jazz band from New Orleans, Kid Ory’s Sunshine Orchestra.

“He was also,” Varga says, “one of the founders of the Hollywood Bowl, one of the first tenors to sing there, and the first manager of the bowl.”

The former dancer and comedienne, now a successful entrepreneur in charge of jazz at the Biltmore Hotel’s Grand Avenue Bar, Diane Varga still sings occasionally.

She came to her current position by an oddly circuitous route. Los Angeles-born, she was classically trained as a ballerina--”But then I started hearing jazz, and decided that ballet was too rigid, too disciplined for me. But I kept on dancing through my school years until a flamenco dancer had me audition at the Moulin Rouge for Donn Arden. Well, he signed me the next day to a three-year contract as a featured dancer. I was 15. He changed my name from Hingley to Varga, because he said I looked like a Varga girl.”

Dancing in Las Vegas with Arden, she ran into that classic movie cliche: The singer didn’t show up, and Arden asked Varga if she could fake her way through a vocal. Before long, she was doing songs, dance and comedy on the road with a Barry Ashton revue.

“Those were the golden Vegas years, with people like Harry James and Buddy Rich, Ella Fitzgerald, Pearl Bailey, all working along the Strip. A little later, I had a lounge act in Lake Tahoe when Ray Anthony called me. I stayed with Ray for seven years, starting as one of the two ‘bookends’ with his orchestra, eventually doing a TV series with him and putting his shows together.”

By then she was on her second marriage, to Anthony’s drummer. Her first husband was a comedian, her third a TWA pilot. She now says, “I’m a three-time loser but I do real well on my own.”

The post-Anthony years were traumatic. Traveling with her own show, Diane Varga and the Varga Girls, she had a Broadway debut and a record deal pending, but fell ill with a gastrointestinal disorder and spent several years in and out of hospitals.

“Then I tried the domestics business, but I was unhappy away from music. I did a lot of praying and meditation--I’d been a Bahai since 1963. Soon I met Roy Hassett, the promoter behind the Queen Mary Jazz Festival. One year I did artists’ relations backstage; the next year I co-produced one of the evenings. I learned so much during that time.”

Through the late Joe Parnello, the pianist, she met Ed DeVries, then manager of the Biltmore. “He asked me if I knew the Grand Avenue Bar, and whether I could do something with it. I said, ‘How about live jazz, and a radio show out of the room?’ On Feb. 2, 1987, we started the policy, with Tommy Newsom leading a small group. On March 3, we had Shorty Rogers and his Giants for our first live KKGO broadcast. We’re still on the air every Tuesday at 8, and the live music goes from 5 to 9 Mondays through Fridays.”

The unusual early-start policy succeeded in bringing substantial crowds of mid-towners who dropped in after work. A token $2 cover charge and complimentary Mexican hors d’oeuvres made the deal taste better.

Happy with the Grand Avenue, the management turned over to Varga operation of the Rendezvous Court, where pianist Dini Clark holds forth Tuesdays through Saturdays from 7-11:30 p.m.

Most significantly, Varga recently extended her wingspan to take in the famous Biltmore Bowl, a legendary 1,000-capacity room that opened in 1934 and became a showplace for Harry James and other name bands of the day. In the late 1930s, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held its awards ceremonies in the Biltmore Bowl; Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart received their Oscars there.

Varga has staged an all-star evening at the bowl headed by Dizzy Gillespie, followed by a memorial tribute to the late Eddie (Cleanhead) Vinson. A Latin jazz night will be presented Feb. 3, featuring Tito Puente and Poncho Sanchez.

Diane Varga is ecstatic. She’s dealing with the music and musicians she loves, and the job is getting better all the time. New Year’s Eve, she will have jazz in four rooms at the Biltmore. “I just knew things would turn out this way,” she says, “because all my life, I’ve been achievement-oriented, and with my spiritual beliefs, I don’t have any financial worries.”