The Women Behind Playboy Jazz

Latin Beat Magazine, April, 2002 by Haydee Vicedo

The name Playboy is irrefutably synonymous with Hugh Hefner, bunny ears and nude centerfolds. It is also synonymous with "jazz," and suddenly a different slew of names and visuals come to mind: the grand Hollywood Bowl, warm summer days and nights, a couple of dates with Bill Cosby, producer George Wein, and wonderful music played by the best jazz legends in the world.

Hugh Hefner's relationship with jazz began at the inception of Playboy Magazine, when he featured the Dorsey Brothers in his inaugural issue, forty-nine years ago in 1953 and the first jazz interview with trumpet icon Miles Davis in 1962. Jazz has worked its way into the pages of Playboy ever since then, and in 1959, in the city of Chicago, the first Playboy Jazz Festival took place. That first American indoor-jazz festival drew over 68,000 people at a top-dollar price of $5.50 for five shows.

Fast forward to 1979 to the West Coast and a warm weekend, a mellow audience of 18,000, and on stage, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, you name it, they were there! Since then, the festival has been an annual event that's taken on a life of its own. George Wein and his Festival Productions have produced it for 24 years. Wein is credited for making jazz an essential element of the summer season and continues to love and nurture the genre. It's also a weekend in June that's prefaced by six-weeks of free pre-festival community events throughout the greater Los Angeles area so that the jazz experience (featuring a diverse lineup of top talent) can be enjoyed by thousands and jazz can continue to have a voice.

More importantly, since 1992, the Playboy Jazz Festival has undertaken a ground-breaking program of offering the two-day Hollywood Bowl event live and free of charge to all non-commercial radio broadcasters throughout America. In 1992 more than 100 broadcasters carried parts of all of the Festival either live or on tape-delay and the number of radio carriers has grown to over 200.

Anyone who has ever experienced any of the Playboy Jazz Festival weekends can attest to its powerful force as the genre's premiere showcase of the music's biggest and most influential acts. Each year the line-up keeps up to pace with its dynamic audience and builds a new fan base along the way. To make the festival the success that it is requires the monumental effort and hard work of hundreds of people on both coasts and in between. Latin Beat Magazine decided to highlight three women who are pivotal, professional, and significant to the success of the Playboy Jazz Festival: Jonne-Marie Switzler of Playboy Enterprises, Darlene Chan of Festival Productions, and Nina Gordon of the Lippin Group.

Jonne-Marie Switzler

Playboy Enterprises

Her official titles are Festival Manager for Playboy Jazz Festivals, Associate Publisher for the Festival Program, and manager, since 2001, of the Playboy Jazz label. But she is much more than mere titles. She's a career woman who's also a mother of three and a wife who appears to have it all.

It probably wouldn't surprise anyone what an electric and eclectic life Jonne-Marie Switzler has led. A classically trained musician and dancer, Jonne-Marie plays the violin, was a ballet dancer in San Francisco, and is currently trying to master certain Greek instruments and the accordion. Before joining Playboy she worked for legendary rock and roll producer Charlie Green and did stints at Elektra and Liberty Records.

In the mid-'70s she was brought on to work at Playboy Enterprises and eventually became manager of the Playboy Jazz Festival and associate publisher of the award-winning festival program, which rivals any slick, beautiful design annual currently in print. Jonne-Marie was there on that beautiful June day in 1979 when the festival re-opened its doors to such legendary acts as Count Basie, Stan Getz, Willie Bobo and other greats. She was also there last year as Roy Hargrove, Femi Anikulap-Kuti, and Nancy Wilson graced the stage. She's extremely hands-on when it comes to the tough task of selecting the featured artists and she's the first to admit that she doesn't mind pushing the envelope when it comes to the show's lineup. The selections are made by Jonne-Marie, her boss Dick Rosenzweig (President of the Playboy Jazz Festival), and Associate Producer Darlene Chan, a committee of three with the input of many.

"To me, jazz is being able to take music and play with it and expand on it; and where does that stop," she comments, regarding the musicians that have been invited to perform. She is extremely aware of what goes on in the music industry, attends numerous jazz and Latin music shows regularly, and is not afraid to highlight an up-and-coming act. At the 2000 festival, Jonne-Marie felt that local Los Angeles group Ozomatli would be an innovative part of the line-up after being wowed by them at a show she attended. They began their performance from the very top of the Hollywood Bowl (the nosebleed area) and came down chanting, with instruments and audience in tow, proceeding to crank up the level of excitement for 18,000 very relaxed, very happy people. Such is an example of how big a fan she is of music and how she manages to stay within the pulse of its beat.