Throughout its history, the smooth jazz genre that saxophonist Dave Koz helped pioneer has been criticized for having predictable melodies and lack of improvisational complexity. Branford Marsalis called it “music to have a barbecue by,” while music critics have dismissed it as a watered-down version of jazz fusion.
While that may or may not be true, there’s no denying that the exceedingly mellow crossover genre has earned the non-ironic admiration of numerous contemporary artists. Kanye West hired Kenny G for an extravagant living-room concert to surprise his then-wife Kim Kardashian. Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz recruited George Benson for their 2018 track “Humility.”
And then there’s Bob James’s “Nautilus,” a 1974 B-side that the smooth jazz godfather considered a “throwaway tune.” It’s since been sampled by more than 350 artists, ranging from Missy Elliot and Ghostface Killah to Beyonce and Run D.M.C. Even rap enfant terrible Tyler the Creator has said he wants to make a “smooth-ass jazz album.”
“Everything is cyclical,” says Koz, who has himself appeared on the Foo Fighters’ Concrete and Gold album and performed alongside them at a sold-out Madison Square Garden concert. “It’s almost like the thing in your closet that you can’t throw away that you bought 30 years ago, that you feel one day is going to come back. We can look at smooth jazz, stick it in the back of our closet, and wait for it to become hip again. And I think that’s really great.”
One thing that’s had no difficulty making a comeback, year after year, is the Dave Koz and Friends Christmas Tour. The Southern California native started the annual holiday celebration, which is now in its 28th year, with like-minded pianist David Benoit. The lineup changes often, but the goal remains the same.
“It’s always been about the right kind of artist, the one that has that heart and that soul and that warmth,” Koz said in a mid-November interview. “Because that’s really what the message of the show has always been consistent about, no matter who’s in it. It’s trying to create that living room feeling, the warmth of family and friends that’s at its peak during the holidays.”
To keep things fresh, Koz frequently has recruited musicians from a wide range of musical and cultural backgrounds. Along the way, he’s also gone out on more than a few limbs.
“The first one that pops into my mind is Bill Medley, who was one of the original Righteous Brothers and became a good friend of mine,” Koz said. “Even though you would think, ‘Is this really the audience? Is he going to feel comfortable?’ We were like, ‘Yeah, it’s Christmas.’ And he’s such a wonderful, warm, engaging and funny person. I said, ‘Do you want to do it?’ And he said, ‘Let’s do it.’ And he was amazing.”
Koz’s love for collaboration has also led to a remarkably diverse list of musicians he’s recorded and toured with over the course of his career, including U2, Stevie Wonder, Rod Stewart, Luther Vandross and, most recently, with Bob James on their Grammy-nominated Just Us album.
“That one is very near and dear to my heart,” Koz said of the 2025 release, which was followed by a short tour and a PBS special. “We recorded the album, which is really just piano and saxophone, in Bob’s living room in northern Michigan. We did it live, two people, two friends, just having a musical conversation.”
The Koz and Friends Christmas Tour, meanwhile, is a much larger conversation, one with a repertoire that includes sacred and secular Christmas songs, hits from the performers’ various catalogues, even a jazzed-up version of the “Dreidel Song.” A lifelong Christmas devotee, Koz sees the holiday season as an opportunity to focus on shared traditions rather than just religion.
On this year’s tour, the musical conversation will be between Koz and guitarist/singer Jonathan Butler, singer Haley Reinhart, multi-instrumentalist Casey Abrams and pianist Kayla Waters.
“The great irony of this tour is that it’s a Jewish person that has been at the helm for all these years,” he says. “But I found that the underlying current of the holidays is family and tradition and nostalgia. And music is such a huge part of that.”
The connection between Koz and tour regular Butler is a case in point. A South Africa guitarist who grew up during apartheid, Butler’s early years were a far cry from Koz’s Southern California upbringing.
“Jonathan is Christian, he’s from Africa, he grew up in a shanty, one of nine kids,” Koz said. “And then you look at me. I’m Caucasian from the San Fernando Valley, one of three kids, Jewish. And yet we’re on the stage together, brothers, projecting a unified front. And to me, that’s what the holidays are about.”
Dave Koz and Friends Christmas Tour 2025 takes the stage at 8pm on Dec 21 at the San Jose Civic Auditorium, 135 San Carlos St, San Jose. sanjosetheaters.org
