JAZZ NOTES : Ray Brown Filling In at Annual Playboy Festival

As excellent and engaging a jazzman as you’ll find, bassist Ray Brown has been named as a last-minute fill-in for Saturday’s program of the two-day Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl. Brown replaces the ailing Horace Silver, who underwent a double hernia operation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in West Hollywood earlier this week.

Brown will be joined by his invigorating trio--pianist Benny Green and drummer Jeff Hamilton--and by a very special guest, the redoubtable vibist Milt Jackson. The foursome works early on Saturday’s bill, which kicks off at 2:30 p.m. with the Mark Inoye-Sam Karam quintet (winners of Sony ES Series award for Juilliard School of Music students), followed by the Washington Preparatory High School jazz ensemble. Brown’s on next, then it’s Dorothy Donegan, the L.A. Sax Giants, the Rippingtons with Russ Freeman, the GRP All-Star big band, Wynton Marsalis, Ray Anthony and Mel Torme. Bluesman Buddy Guy brings down the curtain at 11 p.m.

Sunday’s affair begins at 2 p.m. with Swedish trombonist Nils Landgren, and continues, in this order, with Roy Hargrove, Dr. John, the Zawinul Syndicate, Charles Lloyd, McCoy Tyner’s big band, Patti Austin, Les McCann and Eddie Harris and Al Jarreau. Poncho Sanchez’s Latin jazz band--with Mongo Santamaria, and Dave Valentin with Steve Turre in tow--closes the festival at 10:30 p.m.

A warning to festival-goers: As was the case last year, kegs of beer, coolers and containers larger than 15 inches high, 15 inches wide and 22 inches long will not be allowed past the ticket gate.

And for those of you who aren’t going to it, you can still hear the festival in its entirety on KPCC-FM (89.3).

Roy Sounds Off on Sound: Trumpeter Roy Hargrove, who should be the spark plug that puts a bang into the beginning of Sunday’s lineup at Playboy, never worries about what to practice: There’s always his tone.

“A person’s sound is their most identifiable thing, and I try to maintain a good one,” says the 23-year-old, whose fourth Novus album, “Of Kindred Souls,” has just been released. “When you hear Miles or Freddie (Hubbard), you know who it is from the first note. Your sound is like your voice, the way you speak, maybe your dialect.”

Hargrove says there’s a difference in his sound in the practice room and on the stage in front of an audience. “Then there’s more emotion, you know the people will be taking part. I try to let the people go away from a show feeling good,” he says.

Movin’ In From Motown: Straight Ahead isn’t. These five women from Motown--who record for Atlantic Records and who make their L.A. debut Wednesday at the International Assn. of Jazz Appreciation’s “A Celebration Juneteenth” at the John Anson Ford Theatre in Hollywood--used to specialize in music from the be-bop era and its cousins, but no longer.

“It was an evolution,” says Eileen Orr, the pianist with this most musical quintet that also includes Regina Carter on violin, Marion Hayden-Banfield on bass, Gayelynn McKinney on drums and Cynthia Dewberry handling lead vocals (the rest of the band members also sing).

“The name had as much to do with our attitude toward growth and development as it did toward the kind of music we were aspiring to play,” says Orr. “Then, as we played together, we opened up. Now we do a mix of be-bop, funk, things with fusiony edges, and some originals that have a world beat or R&B; sound. If it has musical and emotional content, we’ll check it out.”