Playboy Festival Vows to Stick With Program

The recent announcement that BET Holdings, the producer of BET on Jazz: The Cable Jazz Channel, has acquired a major interest in Festival Productions Inc. raises some interesting questions for Southland jazz fans.

The first is the impact the agreement will have on the Playboy Jazz Festival--Los Angeles’ largest jazz event, and one of the best-attended jazz festivals in the world. Produced by Festival Productions and its CEO and president, veteran jazz entrepreneur George Wein, the Playboy Festival has long been a model for how to produce a jazz event that will fill a large arena, in this case, the Hollywood Bowl.

The Playboy Jazz Festival is one of the crown jewels in Festival Productions’ international array of jazz events, stretching from Rome, Paris and Berlin to Newport, R.I., New York City, Atlanta and Denver and many other cities. Wein may not have been the first to produce a jazz festival, but his Newport Jazz program in 1954, and all the other festivals that have followed, firmly positioned the music’s capacity to draw large audiences. In addition, Wein was directly instrumental, at the request of Carnegie Hall, in the creation of the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band.

With BET in the picture, will the festival change? Richard Rosenzweig, president of the Playboy Jazz Festival, thinks not.

“Nothing negative’s going to happen. On the positive side, we will be talking to them about the possibility of shooting the festival and appearing on BET. Obviously we can’t do anything with it this year [plans for this year’s festival, scheduled for June 13-14, are already complete] but we’re having exploratory talks.”

But Rosenzweig is clear that the presence of BET will not affect the festival’s programming approach.

“The way it works is this: We give George some idea of the kind of artist we want. And we look to him to communicate with us about their availability, and how they will fit into the overall program,” he said.

“But we never have, and we never will, allow anybody to shove any particular artist down our throat. And if we thought things were going off in some odd direction, we would have a definite problem with that. But I don’t anticipate that at all, and I’m much more interested in the kind of enhanced visibility that the BET/Festival partnership will bring to jazz in general, and to the festival in particular.”

Wein--who has been producing jazz programs internationally since his initial venture, the 1954 Newport Jazz Festival--is similarly intent on maintaining the musical status quo.

“I’ve always been a compromiser in my promotions,” he says. “That’s how we’ve built up our audiences over the years. I mix up pure jazz with more crossover and commercial things, and I’ve been doing that since the early days of Newport. But I’ve always insisted that a certain amount of the purity of jazz is involved in whatever I do. And if I’m going to be involved with this cable TV thing, that purity is going to have to be a part of what we do.”

Rosenzweig and Wein both feel that a change in programming philosophy is unlikely, since Wein and Playboy’s far-reaching lineups and accessibility to jazz artists are what attracted BET in the first place.

Although BET is present on most cable systems, the company has had some difficulties in acquiring outlets for its jazz network, and Robert L. Johnson, chairman and CEO of BET Holdings, suggests that the acquisition of a major interest in Festival Productions may be the action that will finally trigger access to Southern California (where BET on Jazz is not widely available).

“We have affiliate agreements with most of the major cable companies serving the Southern California area,” said Johnson. “We’re talking about our jazz channel to Century Cable, to TCI, to Media One, and the answer usually is, ‘Gee, we don’t have the channel capacity,’ or, ‘When we open up our channel capacity we’re going to look at jazz and other services.’ ”

Johnson’s strategy is to use the enhanced visibility afforded by the festival acquisition to generate the buzz that will persuade cable systems to open up channels for BET on Jazz.

“Jazz festivals bring out a very loyal group of fans and supporters,” he said. “And we hope to convert these fans into people who will contact their cable operators and urge them to bring in BET on Jazz.”

From both the musicians’ and the fans’ points of view, the partners seem well tailored for each other. The possibility of more jazz--possibly even 24 hours a day of jazz--on television will be a boon to musicians’ careers, and a long-needed opportunity for the jazz audience to both see and hear their favorite performers.

On the Shelf: Veteran saxophone and woodwind artist-educator Buddy Collette, 76, who suffered a stroke in February, is on the road to recovery. Although he remains in an area hospital, is still experiencing some immobility on his left side and cannot yet play his instruments, he is upbeat about the future.

“Rehab is going well,” said Collette. “It looks like I may be going home the middle of April. I’ve learned a lot in the hospital about slowing down and taking care of myself. I want to get back to playing, but I’m going to be taking it easier.”