Earl Bostic - 1st Playboy Jazz Festival - ’Jazz For The Playboy’

“The Greatest Three Days In The History Of Jazz“ This refers to the first Playboy Jazz Festival in Chicago. The first American indoor jazz festival, produced in 1959, drawing more than 70,000 fans for five shows over three days between August 7th and 9th. The three-day event saw Dizzy Gillespie, Dave Brubeck, Ella Fitzgerald, Kai Winding, Miles Davis, Count Basie, Jimmy Giuffre, Oscar Peterson, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Sonny Rollins and many more. It would be 20 years before Playboy would host another such festival. Initially, Chicago’s Soldier Field was to have been the venue over a Saturday and Sunday and posters were prepared. However, Catholic Church officials lobbied the city to prevent performances in a stadium owned by the city; breasts were still a print sin in the 1950s. So, a quick change was made to the indoor Chicago Stadium, host to the city’s ice hockey and basketball teams. At 1800, West Madison Street, the Chicago Stadium