Playboy Jazz Fest: Living Up to Its Name? : Entertainment: The jazz scene has changed in the 15 years since the first event was held at the Hollywood Bowl, and the show has changed too--for better or worse.

The more things change . . .

Another Playboy panorama has been unveiled before our eager ears. Bill Cosby has hollered “Give it to ‘em!” for the 978th time. Beach balls have been bounced; handkerchiefs have waved; surging fans have all but invaded the stage for the umpteenth time.

These three questions bear a little examination, at least when used jointly: Is it Playboy? Is it jazz? Is it a festival?

These are fighting questions. There can be no doubt, really, about the first one, since Playboy managed, from the beginning, to identify itself with jazz in one way or another, even while the magazine’s former jazz poll has degenerated into a forum for rock, pop, funk and rap.

This year’s event was neither more nor less a jazz convention than the 15 that preceded it at the Hollywood Bowl. There must have been some significance in the failure to draw a full house Sunday, in contrast to previous years when both days were sold out weeks in advance. (But look at it another way: In those two days, the concerts still drew more than 35,000 fans.) Was it the recession that slowed things down? Was the Latin finale a less spectacular attraction than the Lionel Hampton jam session? Producer George Wein and his associates still don’t have all the answers.

What remains constant is the schism that separates aficionados of straight-ahead jazz from those who roar for David Sanborn and scream for King Sunny Ade. Year after year, Playboy faces the fact that you can’t please all of the people all of the time. You would have to do a great deal of investigation to find a fan who went home raving about Earl Klugh and Spyro Gyra and Wynton Marsalis and Elvin Jones. To reverse the axiom, you have to displease some of the people some of the time, and the trick is to maintain a delicate balance that will leave enough satisfied people to counteract the gripes and grumbles.

The use of the term “jazz” has long been offensive to some musicians who felt that it has a negative connotation. Down Beat magazine changed its slogan a few years ago by adopting a subtitle: Jazz, Blues & Beyond. By the same token, the music presented last weekend could well have been billed as “Playboy Jazz and Entertainment Festival” or “Jazz, Pop & Funk Festival.”

So was it jazz? The reply can only be a firm yes or no.

It was ever thus. Correction: At the very first Playboy Festival, in Chicago in 1959, the lineup was a phenomenal who’s who that did not include a single act definable as non-jazz. But this was before the scene became as fragmented as it is today.

A final question: Is this a festival?

Nobody who has seen (or even heard via radio) the behavior of the crowd can deny that thousands of visitors are there simply to have a grand celebration under sunny June skies. They babble incessantly while some interesting, cerebral band is on stage, then go wild when some excitement-oriented group takes over, whether it’s the African percussion of King Sunny Ade or the commercialized Dixieland of Pete Fountain. Sure, it’s festive, and it will stay that way as long as the sun shines over the Hollywood Bowl. For those who can’t go along with high spirits, the solution is simple: Stay home and relax with your personal CDs.