Dave Koz spreads Christmas cheer with friends

Dave Koz knows the joke already. What’s a nice Jewish boy doing playing all this Christmas music?

For the past 18 years, the smooth-jazz mainstay has traveled the country on his annual Christmas tour. The saxophonist also has released four Christmas albums over his 25-year career.

“That’s a very big question mark. How did all this happen, 18 years of Christmas tours and Christmas albums for a nice Jewish boy,” he joked during a phone interview from the road in Maryland.

“This tour has a very humble beginning. In 1997, I was interviewing a friend of mine, David Benoit, for my radio show. That was the year he lost his mom and I lost my dad. I said why not go play holiday shows together instead of missing them.

“It was great therapy; the shows went great. We kept getting asked back, and next thing you know, it’s been 18 years.”

Since the beginning, Koz has brought his friends along for the show. This year, performing with him will be singer and guitarist Jonathan Butler, Dutch saxophone star Candy Dulfer and The Righteous Brothers co-founder Bill Medley. The show comes for a sold-out performance at the Gallo Center for the Arts on Monday, Dec. 21.

This will be its sixth time the tour has stopped in the Central Valley over the course of its 18-year run.

While Butler and Dulfer are two-year veterans of the Christmas tour, this will be the first time Medley has gone on the road with Koz.

“Bill Medley ads this gentlemen legendary status to the show. There are very few people who are living legends left in the world. And at 75 years old, he is as spry as they come,” Koz said.

“His songs and his beautiful, rich baritone, when he opens his mouth to sing, it’s like comfort coming out of his mouth.”

Koz’s work with Medley is the latest in a long and illustrious line of collaborations throughout the 52-year-old’s career.

In fact, to celebrate them all and his 25 years recording music, Koz released the album “Collaborations: 25th Anniversary Collection” earlier this year. It was his ninth to go No. 1 on the Billboard contemporary jazz album charts and included the new adult contemporary radio hit “(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher,” featuring Kenny Lattimore and Rick Braun.

The idea for the album came when he was chatting with an executive on his Concord Music Group label.

“He said, ‘You know, man, I’ve been looking at your career from the beginning, and look at all the people you’ve worked with, made music with. Collaboration is the thread between all these things,’ ” Koz said. “People like Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks, Herb Alpert; it goes on and on and on. When I saw them all in one list, I was like, ‘Oh, my God, it’s pretty amazing.’

“So we picked some of the favorite collaborations and duets I’d done in the past and also did three new songs. So it’s ‘This is where I’ve been and this where I’m going next.’ ”

Among the new songs was the Lattimore and Braun collaboration, as well as two well-known and a little surprising numbers: “Let It Go” from the Disney animated film “Frozen” and the theme song from the HBO drama “Game of Thrones.”

“ ‘Let It Go’ is a song I credit with my nieces. They’re the ones who said to me, ‘Uncle Dave, why not record our favorite song?’ ” he said. “So I did and in the process came to really fall in love with song. I understand why it’s a huge hit here and all over the world.

“We do that song on the Christmas tour and use a local children’s choir in every city to help me do it. It’s a moment in the show that tugs on everyone’s heartstrings.”

So where did the idea for the cover of the song from the considerably darker and more bloody series “Game of Thrones” come from?

“Scott Bradlee, the YouTube sensation known as the Postmodern Jukebox, had the idea,” Koz said. “I said I’d never watched ‘Game of Thrones’ or heard the song. And he said he’d go into the studio and teach it to me.

“Who knew it was a piece of music that could go so well in the jazz milieu.”

Of course, Koz isn’t done dreaming up new collaborations. He said his dream list of collaborates includes John Legend, Billy Joel, Sting, Norah Jones, Diana Krall, Adele and – believe it or not – Snoop Dogg.

“That guy has been around for long time and is a brilliant businessman and marketing person and artist,” Koz said. “I’d love to figure out something to do with him.”

This story was originally published December 15, 2015 at 2:43 PM with the headline "Dave Koz spreads Christmas cheer with friends."