Legendary saxophone player Dave Koz has racked up an impressive array of honors and achievements: 10 GRAMMY nominations, 12 No. 1 albums on Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Albums chart, numerous world tours, a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, performances for multiple U.S. presidents and a 2023 Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award from the White House.
The last time I spoke with Koz was in September 2021, when the world was just starting to come out of Covid and Koz was set to perform at the Newport Beach Hyatt amphitheater.
Koz remembers it well.
“Even though that was five years ago, there was a certain pain, for lack of a better term, of what we all went through,” Koz told me during a recent phone interview. “It seems like it’s another lifetime ago, maybe because I tried to put it out of my head because it was so discombobulating for touring musicians. Everything just came to a very abrupt stop.”
Koz and his fellow musicians turned to online concerts, which served as a stopgap to continue a connection with fans, but as Koz noted, “there is nothing that can replace sitting at a concert and hearing live musicians playing music live. There’s nothing that can compare to that, so we are very excited to be fully back. It feels fantastic.”
And Koz will be back in Newport Beach June 21 with a handful of fellow musicians as part of the Hyatt Newport Beach Concert Series.
Dave Koz & Friends Summer Horns 2026 features Leo P (baritone saxophone), Jeff Bradshaw (trombone), Marcel Anderson (vocals), Marcus Anderson (saxophone) and Evan Taylor (trumpet). Their tour kicked off in April at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and has included shows in China, Japan and Hawaii.
According to Koz, the idea of Summer Horns started in 2013 when the original lineup was Koz, Mindy Aber, Gerald Albright and Richard Elliott, and they paid tribute to the bands they grew up listening to.
“I’m 63 and I grew up listening to Tower of Power, Chicago, Earth, Wind and Fire, Cool and the Gang, Blood, Sweat and Tears. I was addicted to anything with a horn section. That’s what Summer Horns is about, paying homage to these bands that really shaped us as musicians.”
Koz has changed his Summer Horns lineup several times over the years. His current sextet got together last year and is comprised of primarily younger musicians that Koz had not worked with previously, but thought were great players.
“I remember when we did the recording session for ‘Vehicle’ last year, it was the first time that that group of musicians played together, and I was nervous,” recalled Koz. “I went to the studio that morning thinking ‘I sure hope this works.’ I remember from the first notes that we played, it was like, ‘Yes, this is gonna work,’ and it only got stronger and better and more cohesive. This is a funny group, because we have five different decades represented with this group—someone in their 20s, someone in their 30s, the twin brothers in their 40s, and our trombone player is in his 50s, and I’m in my 60s.”
No matter the age, Koz noted that it shows this particular music appeals to a wide audience.
“Younger people know this music and love this music and want to hear it,” stated Koz. “It’s all about making people feel good at a time when there’s so much stress and so much anxiety about our world. This is a couple of hours where you can just marinate in your memories. This is music that is guaranteed to make you feel good.”
And returning to Newport Beach makes Koz feel good because he has strong connections to Newport.
“I grew up in Los Angeles, and Newport has always been very special to me,” said Koz. “My family used to go on vacations to the Hyatt Newport. My parents loved Newport Beach and Balboa Island, and so we would go there for many summers when I was growing up as a kid. We would stay at the hotel, we would play tennis. My mom was an avid golfer, so she loved the golf down there, so many great golf courses. We would go at night to Balboa Island and get our Balboa bars and our frozen bananas. The place has always been very special to me.”
Koz also loves playing at the Hyatt amphitheater, which holds around 1,000 people yet feels very intimate.
“It feels like you’re playing in somebody’s backyard, as opposed to a big official venue,” he said. “There’s a relaxed feeling and atmosphere. The audience comes there ready to have a good time, and so do we. We’ve had nothing but great shows there over the years. I’m really excited that folks that come to the concert series will be able to see the Summer Horns 2026 show, which is really very fun and very powerful.”
Koz added that the five players that make up the Summer Horns are all individual artists that make their own records and go on tours as individual artists, but when everyone comes together you become an ensemble player.
“This is how I grew up playing in jazz bands and stage bands, growing up in horn sections,” said Koz. “It accesses a different aspect of our musicianship, and the feeling of playing in something in a section that makes this sound that is so much bigger than the sound that you can make on your own. There’s a satisfaction that comes from it that is hard to put into words, even though I’m talking about it verbosely. It’s just a very powerful feeling to be part of that section.”
Local audiences can feel, and hear, that power on June 21. For tickets, visit https://series.hyattconcerts.com.
