DAVE KOZ TALKS ABOUT ‘SUMMER HORNS II.’
When Dave Koz & Friends’ Summer Horns Tour hits Fraze Pavilion in Kettering on Friday, July 20, it’ll be much different than the last two outings.
Koz and his saxophoneplaying collaborators Gerald Albright, Richard Elliot and Mindi Abair had great success with the Grammy-nominated “Summer Horns” (2013).
When Abair was unable to participate in the followup album, it allowed Koz, Albright and Elliot to expand
their sound by enlisting trombonist Aubrey Logan and trumpeter Rick Braun.
Koz recently discussed “Summer Horns II: From A to Z,” which was released on June 22.
CLASSIC HORNS
“We had the opportunity to bring in trumpet and trombone, the heavy hitters, to create that classic horn sec
tion sound with sax. We all love that sound. It’s been a part of all genres of popular music for generations. That’s the sound we really took on for this project, which is very different from the last time we got together. We really wanted to celebrate that classic horn section sound in all the different genres and eras it’s been popular.”
GROUP DYNAMICS
“We all have successful solo caree rs. We travel the world playing our own music, but we all really began as ensemble players. When we get together as the ensemble Summer Horns it accesses a different part of our musical DNA. It’s in there as a blue- print. Playing next to some- body and creating sounds much bigger than your own sounds is a big part of who we are as musicians and that’s what this project is to all of us.”
CHAOS PREVENTION
“The other big stars of this project are the three amazing horn arrangers. These are the guys that crea ted the pop sound of the horn section. Greg Adams was one of the founding m embers and principal horn arrangers for Tower of Power. Tom Scott has arranged horns for every- one from Michael Jackson to Steely Dan and every- one in between. Gordon Goodwin, with his Big Fat Band, is one of the greatest horn arrangers of all time. We could be the greatest players in the world but without the rig ht notes to play we’d sound like crap. It would be chaos.”
UPLIFTING HORNS
“Not to make it too selfinvolved or self-important, but the society we’re living in just isn’t very nice. I like being part of something peo- ple can look at on the stage and say, ‘Look at them, they could each be doing their own show, but they chose to be together to support each other and to create something larger than t heir own interests, even if it’s just for this one summer.’ I love what that says.”