Koz reinvigorated for holiday stop

He credits the revitalization to a handful of things: A new label (Concord), different producers (John Burk and Marcus Miller) and some self-realizations that are firmly embedded in the melodies of “Hello”’s 13 songs.

“This music became my survival guide,” Koz said last week from his home in California, a few hours before heading to his first rehearsal for the Smooth Jazz Christmas tour. “With the label shift, the changes in the music business and my personal life — I lost my mom five years ago. — I was on this hamster wheel of life and only recently started to deal with that. I thought I should try to embrace it all with open eyes and open arms and surf this wave instead of being consumed by it.”

The finished product is one of Koz’s funkiest, most introspective offerings and peppered with guests such as guitarists Lee Ritenour and Keb’Mo’, sax peer Boney James and one of Koz’s heroes, Herb Alpert. The legendary trumpeter cameos on “This Guy’s In Love with You,” the Burt Bacharach/Hal David creation that gave Alpert his first No. 1 hit in 1968.

And, like his idol before him, Koz, 47, sings lead on the song‚ his first-ever official vocal duties on record.

“I had to be pushed and prodded,” Koz said with a laugh, crediting his producers for instilling him with the confidence to sing. “Herb is such a mentor of mine, as a musician and a philanthropist. He’s literally donated more than $100 million to charities; he’s second only to Oprah. So when I sent him a copy of the song and he said, ‘You have my blessing on this,’ and wanted to find a place to play on it‚ to have that happen was such a ‘Hello Tomorrow’ moment.”

Fans will hear some of the tunes from Koz’s latest on the Smooth Jazz Christmas tour, which plays the Cobb Centre on Saturday with guests Jonathan Butler (vocals, guitar), Brian Culbertson (keyboards, trumpet) and Candy Dulfer (alto saxophonist).

But, Koz notes, the holiday shows aren’t so much about jazz as they are family entertainment.

“It will probably be about 60 percent Christmas music to hits of our own. You’re going to see combinations of artists you wouldn’t see anywhere else,” he said.

Saturday’s appearance is also the first time Koz has played Atlanta since a New Year’s Eve gig in 2007‚ also at Cobb. He’s still a fan of the city even if he’s bummed about last year’s demise of Smooth Jazz 107.5-FM, which aired his syndicated radio show.

The absence of the station “doesn’t mean that the fans aren’t there,” Koz said. “It’s one of our most popular cities in America. There are huge jazz fans in Atlanta.”

If you can’t catch Koz in concert, you might stumble across him during a re-run of an October episode of “Desperate Housewives,” where he was spotlighted in an opening sequence that featured the new song, “Start All Over Again.”

The tune, written by longtime pal Dana Glover, who also had a framing role in the episode, is what Koz calls the “tree trunk” of the album.

“I first heard the song five years ago and when I heard the phrase ‘hello tomorrow’ [in the song], I said, ‘That’s the name of the album.’ So I asked Dana if she would sing it on the album and somehow, the song got the attention of [“Housewives creator] Marc Cherry and he said he wanted to write an episode with the song as the cornerstone,” Koz said.

So will there be future moonlighting in Koz’s career?

“I wanted to be the music teacher in ‘Glee’!” he said. “But TV is hard. I’m not going to be an actor anytime soon. And that craft services table is evil.”

Concert preview

Dave Koz and Friends: A Smooth Jazz Christmas 2010

8 p.m. Saturday. $35.75-$87.50. Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, 2800 Cobb Galleria Parkway, Atlanta. 770-916-2800, www.cobbenergy centre.com.