Keeping you up to date on what is happening in smooth jazz, I have information about the recent event in Catalina. Those in attendance the first weekend of the mid October 32nd annual Catalina Island Jazz Festival were treated to unexpected surprise performances much to the delight of the crowd. Even the event producer had no idea that this was going to happen. That producer had been trying to book superstar saxophonist Dave Koz for several years. Contractual arrangements between The Hollywood Bowl and Dave Koz, where he plays smooth jazz events, always prevented this from happening.
Koz woke up that Sunday morning in Sausalito across the a Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. Somehow he made it to Southern California and 26 miles across the sea to Catalina Island. Sunday evenings opening act at 7:00 PM was Adam Hawley, the guitarist in Dave Koz’s band and on tour with their Summer Horns II project. Mid way through Hawley’s performance the crowd was surprised and pleased when he introduced and brought up Koz to join him for a song.
At 9:00 PM it was Dutch saxophonist Candy Dulfer’s performance and the crowd was now anticipating Dave Koz might also join her set since she plays with Koz on his smooth jazz cruises. Yet he did not appear and she was into her last song of the night. A couple of minutes into her song Koz walked on the stage unannounced to join her and brought the house down. Koz was totally an unpaid performer and played simply in support of his colleagues and for the love of the music and smooth jazz fans.
Here are links to YouTube videos of these Incredible performances - copy and paste:
l. Dave Koz & Adam Hawley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZnamasPNak
2. Dave Koz and Candy Dulfer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ymghmMU2qg
New releases from Dave Koz, Herb Alpert, Jazmin Ghent, Ken Navarro, Kim Waters, Brian Simpson, and Blake Aaron.
This week's Billboard top three in smooth jazz played.
Another selection from that brand new September 14th release of the album Love Is Here To Stay that has now topped the charts for an amazing five weeks in a row as Billboard’s number one jazz album. Sure to be one of the great celebrated duets of all time, Diana Krall and 92 year old icon Tony Bennett have combined their incredible voices on this album of twelve songs.
