Q&A Musician Dave Koz.

8 QUESTIONS FOR

Dave Koz

Internationally known jazz saxophonist Dave Koz is a native of Los Angeles, but has most often found his muse and inspiration in Sausalito. He’s been renting a cozy getaway home here for most of the 25 years since recording his debut solo album Saxophonist Dave Koz in 1990. During that quarter-century, he’s also been nominated for nine Grammy awards, has had nine albums reach number 1 SAUSALITO on Billboard magazine’s Current Contemporary Jazz Albums chart, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Koz released Collaborations: 25th Anniversary Collection, last year on Concord Records. He’s also back with his annual holiday tour, which kicked off the day after Thanksgiving and ends just before Christmas, when he and guests Jonathan Butler, Valerie Simpson and Kenny Lattimore appear at the City National Civic in San Jose on December 22. MARC HERSHON

1You recorded Dave Koz 26 years ago, but how long have you been playing saxophone? Forty

years. I started when I was 13 and when my first album came out I was 27. To me this whole career

has been kind of a big surprise.

2How did you get started? My older brother had a band, which was called Randy & Company, that

played weddings, bar mitzvahs and frat parties. My brother told me the only way I would get in the band was if I played the sax.

3So your brother’s comment was what led you to pick up the sax? That and it’s just such a fascinating instrument. It’s just so sexy and complex. And it just felt right in my hands. I was going through so much crap as a 13-year-old, like most 13-year-olds, but I didn’t have the ability to talk to anyone about what was going on in my head and in my heart. The saxophone became my best friend and most trusted ally and confidant.

4Any big realizations after a quarter-century

of being at a level where you’re putting out

albums and touring? The big takeaway from the 25th anniversary is that there are still people interested in hearing me play! I feel very blessed that somehow me blowing through this metal tube, this plumbing, has struck a chord with people.

5What does Christmas music mean to you? Growing up in America means growing up with Christmas music. And I have tremendous respect for the people who wrote the music, because these are the same people who wrote what’s in the Great American Songbook, and that’s music that will never go out of style. Overall, it’s like musical comfort food.

6You’ve been serving as a global ambassador

for the Starlight Children’s Foundation for more than two decades — what drew you to them?

Imagine a young kid who is in the hospital for long periods of time, a burn victim or leukemia patient — what a scary experience, not just for the child, but for the whole family. I’ve seen the smiles that Starlight puts on these kids’ faces, even for just a few moments, when they’re allowed to be a kid again.

7How did you make your way to Sausalito? In 1994, I rented a house from architect John Marsh

Davis for a year, a house that should be in the pages of Architectural Digest. After he needed it back, I bought a house on Richardson Street in Sausalito the very next day. I stayed for five years and have always maintained a place up here. But that first house that John Marsh Davis rented to me nurtured me in a

way like no other place I have ever lived. It allowed me to come to terms with who I was — I came out, and it gave me the time I needed, which I’d never had before, to really just be OK with me.

8Any place in particular that you like to hang out when you’re here? I spend a lot of time at the Buckeye Roadhouse — it’s in the top four or five places that I love in the world. We have all those hidden stairways in Sausalito and I love to walk the stairs to have lunch down at Copita or Poggio and just walk the streets. m