Hot horns and fun music: Summer jazz tour brings the heat to Lexington

The journey to Summer Horns, the touring seasonal summit of brass-infused groove music, began not on a concert stage, but decades ago in Dave Koz’s bedroom. There, the budding saxophonist absorbed every joyous accent of soul, pop and jazz, all shifted into overdrive by a seemingly atomic-level horn section, that poured out of the first record he ever bought — the 1974 Tower of Power album “Back to Oakland.”

“That was the first album I bought with my own money,” Koz said. “I remember listening to it on my bedroom stereo, one of those little fold-up phonographs. I heard that horn section and the amazing musicianship and I was locked in. I couldn’t believe how funky it was, how tight it was and how rhythmically precise it was. At that point, I had already started to play the saxophone, but it was right around the same time that the record just made me want to dig into the instrument more deeply.”

So here we are in 2025 with nine-time Grammy nominee Koz bringing his own touring tower of brassy jazz, funk and R&B to life with the latest edition of his annual Summer Horns tour. The first incarnation centered on a 2013 album and tour, but this will be the first time his traveling brass party will play Lexington.

“Summer Horns really started out as a celebration, almost a homage, to the great horn bands that we grew up listening to. The horn players in that first lineup were Mindi Abair, Gerald Albright, Richard Elliot and myself. We all were, generally, in the same age bracket and grew up listening to Earth, Wind & Fire, Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears, Tower of Power and all of these horn bands that ruled the airwaves during that time period. It was really more of a passion project, something that we wanted to do just because we love that music so much. But it grew into something that was replicable.

“So we did another record. We did two tours behind the first record and then we did another album and did two tours on that and then we did two other subsequent incarnations, so it’s just one of those tours we can continue to do over and over because there is so much music from that era that deserves to be played right now, and the audience eats it up.”

Summer Horns 2025 features jazz, pop artists

What Summer Horns translates into for 2025 is an ensemble with a front line of five horn players — saxophonists Koz, Leo P and Marcus Anderson with trombonist Jeff Bradshaw and trumpeter Evan Taylor. Vocalist Marcel Anderson (Marcus’ brother) compliments the team along with a rhythm section. While the make-up may suggest jazz, the band operates largely as the product of its members’ broader pop influences. Koz’s credits alone include collaborations with Celine Dion, Stevie Nicks and Barry Manilow.

“When you look just at the ages of the people in the front line, we’ve got a young trumpet player, Evan Taylor, who’s in his 20s. There is a baritone saxophone/viral sensation named Leo P, who’s in his 30s. You’ve got the Anderson brothers. Jeff Bradshaw, on trombone, is in his 50s and me, I’m in my 60s, so it’s really a cross generational thing.

“So how do people from 20 to 60 make music together? How do we get on the same page? It really starts with love and appreciation for the music we get to play. There is so much meat on the bones that we could continue to mine this music for years and still not get to all of it. For example, take ‘Sir Duke’ by Stevie Wonder. There is such great stuff to play as a horn player. That’s what we love to do more than anything — to get into a tight horn section and play these great horn parts that are so ingrained in our minds and our hearts. When you have that kind of music to draw upon, I think everything just kind of falls into place.

“Most of what we’re doing is really just summer fun music, but each us has a solo spot where we get a chance to do our own thing. That’s very important. You don’t want to be just a cover band. You also want to share the great artistry that everybody in the front line is doing with their own singles and their own records. We definitely want to have that music included.”

Saxophonist Koz has new album of duets

While Summer Horns emphasizes expansive ensemble groove, Koz’s most recent recording is a stylistic opposite. It’s a stunning duet album with two-time Grammy winner Bob James, a longstanding keyboardist, composer and producer whose penchant for pop-directed jazz mirrors Koz’s musical preferences. But the resulting album, “Just Us,” does away with the pop leanings for a series of acoustic piano/saxophone duets. Though “Just Us” took Koz into uncharted sonic territory, it has become one of the most critically lauded works in his 35-year recording career.

“That project was very different from anything I’ve ever done and certainly that Bob has ever done,” Koz said. “It was us taking a chance. I went to Bob’s house in Northern Michigan, he’s got this gorgeous home on the lake, to do a couple of songs. It was so easy, so much fun and so different for us that we started doing more. I went back about six weeks later. There was one more session and before we knew it, we had this album. We resisted every urge to put more people on it or more instruments. At the same time, we were kind of intoxicated by this sound that just two instruments were making.

“There was no net, no place to hide. It was really ... terrifying, but really exhilarating. That’s when you know you’re onto something good — a good healthy dose of terror and excitement. I know that Bob felt it, too. He’s 85 years old and still so curious about life and discovery. He’s such an elegant man. He showed me how to live a creative life and how that can keep you young well into your 80s and, I’m sure, beyond. He’s an amazing, amazing person. I learned so much from that project.”

The collaboration with James and the current Summer Horns tour are but two parts of a career that includes hosting a weekly radio show on Sirius XM (“The Dave Koz Lounge,” which airs Sundays at noon) and a yearly music cruise, which this year travelled to Iceland and Norway. It will journey to South America in 2026. Engaging in projects that challenge and expand an already vibrant musical profile are what to continue to excite Koz.

“At this point in my life, I don’t feel like I have anything to prove anymore, I want do things that access a different part of my creativity. I don’t know what those things are, but the Bob James project came out of nowhere. I didn’t intend to do it, yet it allowed me to be so nurtured creatively. That’s the kind of project I want to do more of, something that pushes me out of my comfort zone and expands the envelope. Those are things I’m most interested in right now. The wilder the better.”

Dave Koz and Friends Summer Horns 2025

When: Aug. 8 at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Lexington Opera House, 401 W. Short

Tickets: $76.75-$137.55 through ticketmaster.com.