Vincent Ingala, Michael Lington and Dave Koz are three of the most-booked artists in contemporary jazz. They occupy three completely different positions in the same machine: the young one who never stopped being young, the utility player who is everywhere and nowhere, and the star whose most reliable employer is himself. Every figure here is recovered from the festivals' own published lineups.
Ten events, three careers, one chart. Ingala's work is concentrated in the two festivals that book the deepest rosters — Seabreeze and Catalina JazzTrax, ten times each. Lington's is spread almost evenly across eight different events and never rises above six at any of them. Koz's is one bar, and it is the tallest on the page — the cruise that carries his name.
The cruise series Dave Koz hosts accounts for 16 of his 36 bookings, four times his count at any other event in this study. Artist-led events are not unique to him: Brian Culbertson founded his Napa Valley Jazz Getaway in 2012, and Eric Darius hosts the San Diego Smooth Jazz Festival.
Six festivals with recoverable year-level lineups, 2000 through 2026. A filled dot is an appearance. Read across for a career; read down for a year. This is what a working life on the smooth jazz circuit looks like as a data structure.
Thirty-five recovered appearances in fifteen years. Ten at Seabreeze. Ten at JazzTrax. He released his first album at 17 (2010); his first recovered festival appearance is 2012. He is 15th all-time with 48 bookings across the ten biggest events.
Twenty-two recovered appearances spread over twenty-three years and six festivals, plus Long Beach, Jazz Getaway and the Koz cruise. His maximum at any single event is six. He is the most evenly distributed of the three: eight of the ten biggest events, none more than six times.
Fourteen recovered festival appearances across twenty-seven years — fewer than Ingala managed in five. And sixteen bookings on the Dave Koz & Friends at Sea cruise. By volume, 44% of his recorded bookings are on the cruise that carries his name, which he has hosted since 2005.
Fifteen years, 48 bookings, 15th all-time. Ten appearances each at Seabreeze and Catalina JazzTrax; booked by 9 of the 10 biggest events.
Eight events, none more than six times; 33 bookings across the ten biggest events and 22 recovered year-level appearances, 2004–2026.
Sixteen of his thirty-six bookings are on the cruise that carries his name, which he has hosted since 2005. He is one of several artists in this study who run or host their own event: Brian Culbertson founded his Jazz Getaway in 2012, Eric Darius hosts San Diego, and the Apaulo series and Jazz at the Oxford are booked by artists.
Read together, these three careers describe the whole system. There is a fixed pool of artists, a fixed set of events, and a booking habit that renews itself annually. You can be young in it, you can be everywhere in it, or you can run an event of your own inside it.
Year-level appearances were extracted from the recovered lineup files behind the four single-festival editions of this study: Berks (official Artists History page, 1991–2026), Seabreeze and Catalina JazzTrax (archived lineup pages, 2006–2026), Rehoboth (archived festival site, 1996–2026), Newport Beach (the festival's Previous Performers page, 2013–2026) and San Diego (promoter release copy, 2017–2026).
Ten-event totals come from the master appearance tally, which additionally covers Capital Jazz, Long Beach, Brian Culbertson's Jazz Getaway, The Smooth Jazz Cruise, the Dave Koz cruise and Thornton Winery — events with reliable counts but incomplete year-level records. One appearance = one artist on one edition's bill, solo or inside a package. Unrecovered years are omitted, never estimated. Every count is a floor.
Three careers inside the loop. The volumes they move through are here.