ARTS&LIFE
MUSIC

R

aised Reform in the San 
Fernando Valley near Los 
Angeles, Dave Koz and his 
family celebrated Chanukah every year 
and didn’t have much in the way of 
Christmas traditions.
“I’m making up for that now — big 
time,
” Koz says now, with a laugh. 
The Grammy Award-nominated 
saxophonist is in the midst of his 27th 
Annual Dave Koz & Friends Christmas 
Tour, playing songs of the season for 19 
nights around the country. It’s a tradi-
tion he loves, even if it’s not a tradition 
he comes from.
“I love Christmas music,
” Koz, 
61, says by phone from his home 
in Beverly Hills, California. “These 
songs, for the most part, not the reli-
gious ones, songs more like ‘White 
Christmas’ and ‘Winter Wonderland’ 
— were all written during that 
time period of The Great American 
Songbook. In the same way that music 
has stood the test of time, these songs 
will be around forever. The guys who 
wrote these songs were legendary song-
writers, and they knew how to do it.
It’s not lost on Koz, of course, that 
some of those writers were Jewish as 
well — “White Christmas” by Irving 
Berlin, “Chestnuts Roasting on an 
Open Fire” by Mel Torme, “Let It 
Snow” by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, 
“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” 
and a slew of others by Johnny Marks. 
It’s a long list, sometimes by commis-
sion, sometimes just for songs to sell, 
but a significant portion of the pop-
ular Christmas playlist has a kind of 
hechsher on it. 
That’s true in popular music as 
well. Besides Koz, performers such 
as Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, 
Barry Manilow, Carole King, Harry 

Connick Jr. and Kenny G have released 
Christmas albums — often more than 
one. 
“
A Christmas Gift For You from 
Phil Spector” from 1963, meanwhile, 
is a perennial favorite in the holiday 
market. 
“It’s interesting, isn’t it?” Diamond 
said some years ago of the Jewish 
Christmas music phenomenon. “I 
love so many forms of music; there’s 
hardly a form that I don’t love. And 
these (Christmas) songs are some of 
the greatest melodies ever written. It’s 
a pleasure to sing songs that are that 
beautiful.
”
When releasing “In the Swing of 
Christmas,
” the jazz-flavored third of 
his Christmas albums, Manilow noted 
that, “I don’t do it as a religious thing at 
all. I do it as a family-oriented album 
— winter, family, feel-good time of the 
year where everybody gets together 
and stops hollering at each other.
” 
He also lamented the comparative 
lack of similar caliber repertoire for 
Chanukah.
“If I could do (a Chanukah) album, 
believe me, I would,
” says Manilow, 
who’s staging his “
A Very Barry 
Christmas” concerts in Las Vegas this 
month. “But I look at my heritage 
songs, and they are awful. What am I 
gonna do — ‘Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel?’ 
It’s just not the same.
”
For Koz — who’s released seven hol-
iday albums since 1997’s “December 
Makes Me Feel This Way” — the 
Christmas tour ironically has a lot to 
do with his upbringing. 
“We always celebrated Chanukah in 
our home — lit the candles at home, 
eight nights, exchanged gifts and every-
thing,
” Koz recalls. “We never had a 
Christmas tree, but maybe because it 

Jewish Saxophonist Dave Koz continues 
his Christmas Tour.
Jewish Saxophonist Dave Koz continues 
Jewish Saxophonist Dave Koz continues 

GARY GRAFF CONTRIBUTING WRITER

52 | DECEMBER 12 • 2024 
J
N

Details
Dave Koz & Friends 27th Annual Christmas Tour, featuring Jonathan Butler,
Adam Hawley, Vincent Ingala and Rebecca Jade, plays at 7:30 p.m. 
Sunday, Dec. 15, at Music Hall Center, 350 Madison Ave., Detroit.
(313) 887-8500 or musichall.org. 

Saxophonist 
Dave Koz 
performs on 
stage. 

JACK COHEN