Christmastime is Dave Koz time.
It’s been that manner for many years, starting manner again in 1997 when he ventured out on his very first vacation season tour with legendary pianist David Benoit and another gifted musicians.
This 12 months, Koz — the extraordinarily widespread and gifted smooth-jazz saxophonist — is heading out on his twenty eighth annual Christmas Tour with one other gifted crop of artists, together with vocalist-guitarist Jonathan Butler, vocalist Haley Reinhart, multi-instrumentalist Casey Abrams and pianist Kayla Waters.
Koz and crew will carry out 5 reveals in 4 cities in California — Dec. 19-20 at Cerritos Middle for the Performing Arts, Dec. 21 on the San Jose Civic, Dec. 22 on the Gallo Middle for the Arts in Modesto and Dec. 23 on the Luther Burbank Middle for the Arts in Santa Rosa.
For ticket particulars and different data, go to davekoz.com/tour.
We not too long ago had the prospect to speak with Koz, the Grammy-nominated musician who has offered hundreds of thousands of albums throughout a recording profession that dates again to his self-titled debut in 1990. The musician — who can be the host of the syndicated “Dave Koz Radio Show” — was at his dwelling in Beverly Hills on the time of the interview, however he additionally owns a spot in Sausalito.
Q: You’re sort of often known as Mr. Christmas Music. Do you ever get up within the morning and surprise, like, “Wait, how did I get here?”
A: I take into consideration that — particularly this time a 12 months — lots. We’re about prepared to start out our twenty eighth annual Christmas tour. And it’s mindboggling. I might by no means have thought, this a few years in the past, we might nonetheless be doing this. However right here we’re.
The ironic a part of that is that I’m Jewish — a pleasant Jewish boy. I’ve eight Christmas albums and that is 28 years of Christmas touring.
However, as a musician, the repertoire of Christmas music is so wealthy that you possibly can do 28 years plus and never do the identical music yearly and nonetheless not resolve the barrel. There’s a lot music.
Q: Little question about that. The Christmas music catalog could be very deep.
A: And plenty of this music — which is what retains me coming again 12 months after 12 months — has plenty of meat on the bones. So, you possibly can take these songs, which have been heard hundreds of thousands of instances, and yearly you possibly can paint a brand new image on that canvas. They provide you a lot to work with. So, you possibly can push and pull them in plenty of completely different instructions musically and so they nonetheless maintain up.
Q: Are there challenges that go together with having that sort of leeway with the music?
A: The problem is, yearly, the right way to discover that proper steadiness. Throughout the holidays, lots of people like the identical factor time and again — yearly. That’s one of many the explanation why, I believe, we’re nonetheless round in any case these years – as a result of folks have made us, fortunately, a part of their vacation custom.
So, the problem for us yearly is how can we make the present new and fascinating? However, on the similar time, not change it an excessive amount of, as a result of folks need to hear their favourite songs and the best way that we do them.
Q: I’m guessing you grew up celebrating Hanukkah in your house. However how did your love for Christmas start?
A: You’re proper. We didn’t have a Christmas tree. We did have a good time Hanukkah. And my mother and father have been fairly non secular about celebrating Hanukkah each night time — all eight nights. God bless them. There have been three youngsters in our household and each child received a present each night time. So, that’s thrice eight equals 24 — 24 items! They weren’t all extravagant items. However you must hand it to my mother and father for doing that. I like that.
I didn’t have any Christmas accoutrements round me rising up, so I might all the time go to my pal’s home. There was one pal whose household did Christmas actually nice. It was trimming the tree and the music and the meals — the ham, the turkey, the stuffing. Every thing about it was like proper out of a storybook. So, each Christmas, whereas my household was not doing any of that, I might go over to my pal’s household and get impressed that manner. That’s sort of the place my love for Christmas started.
Dave Koz, the Sausalito-Beverly Hills-based {smooth} jazz saxophonist together with his canine “Buddy” at his dwelling in Beverly Hills, CA, on Monday, November 17, 2025. (Picture by David Crane, Los Angeles Each day Information/SCNG)
Q: How did this entire Christmas tour endeavor get began?
A: It goes again to 1997. I used to be doing an interview with David Benoit — I used to be interviewing him for my radio present. He had simply misplaced his mother and it was about two weeks after I misplaced my father. We received to speaking on this interview and he was simply very actual and genuine about the place he was at. And I used to be like, “I feel the exact same way, too.”
So, it was his concept. He mentioned, “Maybe, this holiday season, we should just go out and do a few shows and make some music — not just for the audience, but for ourselves, to kind of comfort ourselves in dealing with this monumental loss of losing a parent.”
We referred to as the brokers — we had the identical agent — and we mentioned, “Let’s do some Christmas shows.” We had possibly six or seven reveals that 12 months — very sparsely attended. However the present was good and the promoters favored it and so they invited us again the subsequent 12 months. And earlier than we knew it, this turned like a practice. However it wouldn’t have occurred had that dialog not have taken place with David Benoit, whose concept this entire factor was.
So, the tour began with this very actual, familial factor that most individuals finally should undergo — the lack of a dad or mum — and the ability of music to heal. Over and over, I’ve been blown away — humbled — by this large energy that music has. Nothing else has fairly the identical energy to heal. That’s the DNA of our Christmas Tour that’s in each present that we do.
Q: It’s fascinating to me how Christmas music connects so strongly with loss. Final 12 months, I misplaced my dad — “Big” Jim — and he was a complete Christmas man, placing up all of the little homes and making a Christmas village and whatnot. And listening to Christmas music this 12 months is simply mentioning such sturdy feelings and reminiscences about him.
A: I’m sorry about your loss. That’s a tricky one. It’s a membership that none of us need to be members of, however all of us have to affix finally.
Q: When did you understand that this tour was going to be an annual factor for, principally, perpetually?
A: Effectively, I don’t know if we’re going to do it perpetually. I want to get to 30, which is a pair years away. And I want to do it with the unique individuals who have been on the primary tour. And we’ve come again to that lineup — which was David Benoit, Rick Braun, Peter White, myself, Brenda Russell was a part of the early touring years. I might love to maneuver towards making the thirtieth annual tour the final one — after which type of hand the baton over to another person to do it. There are such a lot of unimaginable younger musicians who need to have the chance.
Q: Whoa. I didn’t have any concept you have been even contemplating stepping away from the Christmas tour.
A: If I have been to stroll away from it, I wouldn’t stroll away from it evenly. I might really feel it lots.
It’s not that I get an opportunity to be with my household through the holidays, however I get to be with all these households — hundreds of households — each vacation season. So whereas on the non-public aspect of it, there’s a little little bit of a depletion – all these years of not getting an opportunity to be with my circle of relatives. However being part of all these different households’ vacation traditions has given me power, inspiration and has saved me going all these years too.
It’s a strong factor to be onstage feeling all that power and all that love.
Dave Koz
Age: 62
Career: Clean/modern jazz saxophonist, syndicated radio present host, businessman
Residence: He has properties in Sausalito and Beverly Hills
Dave Koz 5 issues:
1. Foo within the household: Koz is the godfather of Dave Grohl – sure, that Dave Grohl, of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame. The saxophonist has even recorded on a Foo Fighters album and appeared with the band in live performance.
2. He actually loves Sausalito: “I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, and I am a Southern California boy, but my heart lies in Sausalito. That’s my spiritual home.”
3. Crosswords run in his blood: His father was an enormous crossword puzzle fan and — now that he’s handed — Koz carries on the custom. “I do it pretty much every day.”
4. He joined the membership: “I was a very lucky recipient to be inducted into a cigar club that was headed up by the late great Norman Lear. It was a group of just eight guys who got together every couple months at Norman’s house.”
5. Metallica evokes him: “Most people wouldn’t think that I could look to other genres – like heavy metal – and learn from the example that those guys, in particular, have set and how I could use some of those properties and put them into my career.”
