Hefner ‘Delighted’ by Playboy Jazz Film Fest

An artistic success and a commercial uncertainty. That’s the best description of last week’s Playboy Jazz Film Festival.

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There was no denying the high quality of the material in each of the festival’s 17 screenings at the Laemmle’s Sunset-5 theaters in West Hollywood. But the overflow audiences that arrived for the three primary evening events did not show up for some of the other films.

Nevertheless, Playboy’s Hugh Hefner was far from disappointed with the results.

“I’m just delighted with the way it worked out,” he said. “It really turned out to be something much larger than I originally expected it to be. And the reaction--especially after the opening night performance of ‘One Day in Harlem’--was overwhelming.”

Hefner was “touched personally” by three of the films: “Bix: Ain’t None of Them Played Like Him Yet,” “Lady Day: The Many Faces of Billie Holiday,” and “Too Much Harmony” (a 1933 theatrical featuring Bing Crosby).

“There was something wonderful about the fact that so many other people also seemed to be moved by these films,” he said. “And the Crosby picture, in its restored version, was like seeing an entirely new film.”

Hefner, who attended all three days of the festival, was so impressed that he now plans to consider the restoration of more musicals--perhaps starting with “New Orleans,” which also was included in the screenings.

He is also “taking a hard look” at the potential for further installments.

The original motivation for the film festival was the celebration of Playboy’s 40th anniversary. But the Playboy Jazz Festival was initially created to commemorate the magazine’s 25th birthday, and soon became a major annual event at the Hollywood Bowl. The chance for a similar continuation of the Jazz Film Festival--a possibility much hoped for by many attendees--seems bright.

Hefner also is considering packaging comparable jazz film compilations for tours to universities and colleges around the country.

“Film is, by definition, a more intimate medium than jazz performance,” Hefner said. “And there is something special about experiencing the music in such a direct way. I think we can do that with a college tour. Because if there was anything that was really moving about presenting these jazz films, it was the opportunity to give older people the chance to remember, and younger people the chance to discover.”

Producer Mark Cantor, who has one of the most extensive jazz film collections in the world, would like to see future festivals maintain the mainstream orientation of this year’s “Bix to Bird” framework, while diversifying with other jazz items, as well.

“I’d also like to see more peripheral programs such as jazz dance and Western swing,” Cantor said. “We’ve also talked about possibly doing some kind of judging process for new jazz films that have been made during the previous year. There are so many options.”

If nothing else, the Playboy Jazz Film Festival opened the doorway to a collection of jazz images largely unknown, even to the music’s most avid fans. And there is much more available. Cantor, who regularly has produced programs of short jazz film clips on his own as well as for the Playboy Jazz Festivals, says there is sufficient material for dozens of different shows. Later this month, at KLON’s Jazz West Celebration, for example, he will present three screenings encompassing Central Avenue music and a mix of Stan Kenton, Woody Herman and West Coast jazz.

That’s good news for the Playboy Jazz Film Festival’s enthusiastic audiences. An eclectic assemblage of old and young, the crowds included fans mature enough to have seen Charlie Parker in person, as well as listeners who might have seemed more appropriate for a Pearl Jam concert.

The festival’s success, despite its commercial shortcomings, may have been best illustrated by one young man who, emerging from the opening night program in baggy shorts and a reversed baseball cap, announced to his girlfriend, “Wow, that guy Lester Young, man. He is way cool.”