Free Playboy Concert Has Some Jump

The Playboy Festival’s free concert at Santa Monica College’s Corsair Field on Sunday afternoon ran smack into the pregame anticipation of the Lakers-Kings playoff final. As it turned out, the festival had better luck than the Kings. There was a good-sized turnout for the event (at least until the approach of the 4:30 tipoff time), and the music offered a dynamic display of the eclectic programming that characterizes Playboy’s pre-festival free concert series.

Singer Marlena Shaw opened the bill with a typically mixed bag of blues and ballads. Charismatic as ever, she purred her way through the slower tunes while triggering enthusiastic shouts of glee from the crowd with her soul-stirring rhythm numbers. Listening to and watching this magnetic artist in action, one could only wonder why her obvious talents have never really received the attention they deserve.

Closing the afternoon, the superheated salsa band Orquestra Son Mayor cranked up the temperature with its combination of brisk dance steps, hard-edged horn riffing and seductive vocalizing. To its credit, the group managed to hold a substantial portion of the crowd well past the start of the Laker game.

In between, the highlight of the afternoon was provided by versatile saxophonist Eric Marienthal. Although his set was thoroughly underpinned with funk and fusion rhythms, his soloing ranged easily from smooth-jazz accessibility (including Kenny G-like interaction with the crowd) to some impressive, straight-ahead bebop.

Marienthal gave his players plenty of time in the spotlight, triggering a flurry of snaps, thumps and hip swinging from bassist Vail Johnson on “One for James” (appropriately dedicated to James Brown), some high-speed finger work from keyboardist Hans Zenmuehlen on “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” and a stirring duet with drummer Joel Taylor on “St. Thomas.”

If that sounds like a diverse set of tunes, that’s exactly what it was, and it was made even more far reaching when Marienthal tossed in the funk rhythms of “Street Dance” and added a contemporized take on Lennon & McCartney’s “Come Together.” The entire afternoon reflected the effectiveness of the free Playboy concerts in reaching out to the Southland.