JAZZ REVIEW : A High-Decibel High at Playboy Festival

Hugh Hefner was clearly happy. Producer George Wein beamed. Bill Cosby, always eager to be part of the action, sat in on percussion with Hiroshima. Their enthusiasm fanned out to almost 18,000 patrons at Sunday’s 8 1/2-hour Playboy Jazz marathon at the Hollywood Bowl.

More than the Saturday session, this program leaned toward various forms of fusion. At one point Etta James remarked: “I know this is a jazz festival; I don’t know what I’m doing here.” But the honking and shouting of James and her so-called Roots Band was supposed to be a crowd killer first and a critic pleaser last.

Judged on its own R&B; terms, the James vulgarisms had as logical a place here as Chick Corea’s Elektric Band with its sometimes too spaced-out material, or the rockier moments of Hiroshima or Lee Ritenour. True, the Bowl too often became Earplug City, but the validity of the music, pure or hybridized, was seldom at issue.

Hiroshima came on late in the evening to bring the crowd to a rare pitch of frenzy with its Asian rock bombast. The key contributors were Johnny Mori, locked in mortal battle with a big taiko drum, June Okida Kuramoto in her exotic koto solos and, most memorably, the band’s latest addition, a singer named Machun Taylor. Blessed with a powerful voice, astonishing range and physical beauty, Taylor was spectacularly successful, most notably on a theme song in unison with Dan Kuramoto’s saxophone.

Six hours earlier, the program had been launched with the Hennessy Jazz Search winner, a band known as Happy House that eschewed funk and fusion to concentrate on contemporary concepts in a post-Ornette Coleman acoustic vein.

Dorothy Donegan, a highly skilled pianist who was encouraged by no less an admirer than Art Tatum, showed her harmonic sense in “Here’s That Rainy Day,” her speed (verging on haste) in “Caravan,” her swinging ease on “Isn’t She Lovely,” and her blues sensitivity on “After Hours.” On this last she was joined by a young violinist, Laura Canaan, who played well but outstayed her welcome, interfering on tunes for which Donegan clearly wanted no assistance.

The white bearded Gerry Mulligan differed little from the adventurous young redhead who turned small-group jazz around in the 1950s. His creative impulses are as keen as they were back there when melody and harmony were king and queen.

After the Etta James extravaganza came Lee Ritenour in an unsettled set that vacillated between excerpts from his straight-ahead album, happily including the title tune “Stolen Moments,” and fusion numbers that involved overloud thumbing and strumming, albeit with sterling support from Bill Evans on saxes, Dave Witham on piano, the very able bassist Brian Bromberg, and a drummer, Sonny Emory, whose solo work made sense.

Ritenour did not have the option, as did Chick Corea, of subdividing his appeal. Heard Saturday with his acoustic band, Corea returned in full plugged-in regalia, with John Patitucci now on electric bass, Dave Weckl again on drums, abetted by Eric Marienthal on saxophone and Frank Gambale on guitar. Corea’s writing achieves enough of a mix of melody, form and rhythmic variety to overcome, in some measure, the problems inherent in excessive volume.

Some of the most compelling sounds of the day issued from the voice and guitar of Milton Nascimento. Beginning on his own, then joined by synthesizer and a percussion section, he sang with a hypnotic charm that transcended the language barrier, then indulged delightfully in the lingua franca of whistling.

Later, Wayne Shorter’s soprano sax was added. His piercing, passionate examination of this demanding horn’s upper reaches brought an altogether riveting set to a fitting climax.

The final act was the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, or rather, a band the 81-year-old veteran had put together, composed of musicians from Local 47, with a background of just one rehearsal. They handled the charts adequately while the vibes master gave several men a chance to shine, among them the Candoli Brothers, Conte and Pete, in a trumpet challenge that managed to get across to an audience whose attention span was long past its peak.

Hampton’s chief surprise was the guitarist Mary Osborne, whose credits go back to records with Coleman Hawkins and Mary Lou Williams. Osborne, almost invisible behind the vibes, was in pristine form as Hamp unleashed her for three choruses of “Stompin’ at the Savoy,” then dueted with her on “Tenderly,” dedicated to Sarah Vaughan. Osborne having long been a neglected presence, it would have been nice if Hampton had remembered to properly introduce her.

Later, it went downhill, with Skip Cunningham, a singer and tap dancer in a tribute to Sammy Davis, and more band instrumentals as the noise out front kept growing. But one of Hampton’s endearing qualities is that he loves music too much; he never knows when to stop. Would that everyone, at any age, who’d share his level of talent and enthusiasm.