Most young people probably associate
Hugh Hefner with the famous three letter word,
sex and his successful Playboy Magazine empire but few would know that he's also well known for his involvement in jazz and race.
If you were not a teenager in the 50s, you would not know that
Hugh Hefner celebrated the fifth anniversary of his
Playboy Magazine in 1959 by putting on a
Jazz Festival in Chicago. Hefner now 82-years young is an American icon because he chose to shamelessly promote the music he loved, Jazz in his magazine.
Hefner celebrated the 25th anniversary of
Playboy magazine with a party at the Hollywood Bowl in 1979 not knowing that jazz had been tried unsuccessfully at the Bowl. That first event received good support from the Chicago community and 30 years later it is still going strong.
The
annual Playboy Jazz Festival celebrated its 30th anniversary with
Bill Cosby returning as host for the 27th time. Cosby now 70 years old shares Hefner's passion for jazz. He remembers traveling outside of
Philadelphia for the first time not as a military person. Cosby joined the Navy at age 16 and traveled in the deep South with the track team where he had to enter restaurants through the back door.
Hefner remembers a Chicago "so segregated" as a young man that when he would go to the South Side of Chicago and downtown to see jazz acts, it would be the only place where you were likely to see a mixed-race audience.
Music has been for a long time the catalyst to heal the great racial divide of generations. Therefore, it is no surprise to learn that Hugh Hefner was a strong supporter of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. Today,
rap and hip hop music has been able to further heal the
racial divide as the music of choice for all young people - black, white and all other ethnic backgrounds.
Steven Watts, chairman of history at the University of Missouri and author of
Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the American Dream that is expected in bookstores in October 2008 will no doubt tell how Hefner used his early television show,
Playboy Penthouse to present blacks and whites together at a time when that was seldom done culturally or socially.
Conscious rappers like Common, Nas, Immortal Technique and
new rap songs from Jair Dynast highlight some of the social issues that plagued our inner cities today. You can be part of a vibrant rap music community to interact with other music fans that share your interests and get free
rap music downloads monthly.
