CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: "Playboy" founder Hugh Hefner has a burning passion for jazz music. CNN's Eric Horng explains how he turned that love into a Hollywood tradition.</s>ERIC HORNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the legendary Joe Williams...</s>JOE WILLIAMS: I see skies of blue...</s>HORNG: ... to vibraphone virtuous Lionel Hampton, to the incomparable Etta James, the Playboy Jazz Festival has hosted a parade of music icons.</s>HUGH HEFNER, "PLAYBOY" FOUNDER: Jazz music was the music of my childhood.</s>HORNG: In 1959, "Playboy" founder Hugh Hefner held a jazz festival in Chicago to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his magazine. The lineup included Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. Twenty years later, he decided to do it again, this time at the 18,000 seat Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.</s>HEFNER: The original intention was to just do it the one weekend, but we did it a second and because of its success -- and by then it was so successful that we just made it an annual event.</s>HORNG: Year after year, the festival has featured virtually every variation of jazz, from contemporary to blues to salsa, drawing a diverse and loyal following.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're about 50 percent sold out before we announce the acts later in February.</s>HORNG: Multiple Grammy winner Al Jarreau, a festival regular, says it's that special connection with the audience that keeps him coming back.</s>AL JARREAU, SINGER: Sitting there watching you do what you do, this kind of music that doesn't get a lot of sunshine, it is not the pop music, again, of the day, to have those -- that's a shot in the arm for us.</s>HORNG: Jarreau, along with a lineup of well known artists, will once again take the stage this weekend, celebrating 25 years of memories and music. In Hollywood, I'm Eric Horng.
Hugh Hefner Has Burning Passion for Jazz