Bands Set for Playboy Festival at Bowl

About 20 top-name bands will be on the bill of the 13th annual Playboy Jazz Festival, to be held June 15-16 at the Hollywood Bowl.

Performers will include the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra with saxophonist Lew Tabackin, the Harper Brothers with guest organist Jimmy McGriff, and Masekela-Makeba, featuring trumpeter Hugh Masekela and singer Miriam Makeba.

Returning performers and newcomers alike are generally enthusiastic about appearing at the outdoor festival--especially for the exposure.

“The value of a situation like that is that there are so many people, so many different types of listeners, that it’s a golden opportunity for exposure and advertising for the band,” says Akiyoshi, who led her large ensemble at the second Playboy Jazz Festival in 1980. “It’s a way for people to get to know us if they didn’t know us before. Also I am delighted to be at the Hollywood Bowl, where we haven’t played since 1985, when we did the Dizzy Gillespie Tribute.”

“I know that Playboy is one of the big festivals on the West Coast, and it has some pretty nice acts, so we’re happy to be there,” says drummer Winard Harper, co-leader of the Harper Brothers with his trumpet-playing sibling, Phillip, who plays Playboy for the first time this year. “But really it’s just good to be able to play and play anywhere.”

Tickets, which always sell out quickly, range from $10-$65 per day and are available by mail. They will go on general sale late next month when the complete festival lineup is announced. Information: (213) 450-9040.

Club Crawl: The lounge at Lunaria, the Westside bistro at 10351 Santa Monica Blvd. (at Beverly Glen), has been slightly altering its offerings. It’s still going with the jazz duos and trios--often with singers--that it’s been spotlighting since opening in August, but it’s now adding drummers most nights and generally livening things up.

“I’m really tickled about what’s happening. We had (saxophonist) Teddy Edwards in there recently and it was like a real jazz room. People were quiet during the tunes and applauding a lot,” says singer Diane Varga, who handles bookings for the room and who was formerly associated with the Biltmore Hotel’s Grand Avenue Bar. “We’re keeping the excitement level high, which is what the room needed.”

Varga says musicians are calling her, asking to work the room, and “that’s always a good sign.” Varga took over at Lunaria in November from fellow singer Ruth Price, who currently provides talent for Giorgio’s in Long Beach and Central Park West in Brentwood.

The upcoming schedule for Lunaria includes singers Cheryl Barnes and Yvette Stewart, pianist-singer Randy Randolph and bassist Dave Enos, Wednesday, and singer-pianist Dave MacKay, bassist Andy Simpkins and drummer Harold Mason, Thursday. Information: (213) 282-8870). . . . Pianist John Hammond, who played a major off-screen musical role in the film “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” and superlative bassist Tom Warrington, heard recently in Los Angeles with pianist Denny Zeitlin and singer Ernestine Anderson, are now holding forth in the lounge of the Hotel Bel-Air, 701 Stone Canyon Road, Bel-Air. The duo works Tuesday-Saturday nights through February.