The saxophone is most often associated with jazz, but it has a rightful place in modern pop, too; just ask Katy Perry and Lady Gaga. The Coachella Valley is a melting pot for older jazz crowds and younger pop crowds—and one local musician finds himself right in the middle of this mix.
Chase Huna is a local saxophonist who channels jazz and pop in both his original music and his cover selections. He has released three studio albums of instrumental tunes, and he frequently performs throughout the valley, including Tuesdays at Vicky’s of Santa Fe with the Slim Man Band, and Wednesdays at Larkspur Grill as part of the Rat Pack Duo with Slim Man. He’s also played his sax in some unconventional places, like the Southwest Community Church; he’s even performed the National Anthem at a few Coachella Valley Firebirds games.
“When I was small, I didn’t want to listen to Beethoven or anything a 2-year-old (normally) wants to listen to; I wanted to listen to jazz,” Huna said during a recent phone interview. “Some of the artists were Mindi Abair, Peter White and Rick Braun. My uncle burned a CD for me of, like, 25 different jazz artists that I just wanted to put on repeat. … When I was 7 years old, I saw a guy play saxophone onstage. It was actually my brother’s friend’s dad, and he was playing down at the El Paseo Gardens. I was like, ‘Man, this kind of this seems cool,’ and I just gravitated toward the sax and thought it was a cool deal. For my 10th birthday, my dad ended up getting me my first saxophone—and I’ve been playing ever since.”
He said he knew “sax was going to be my deal for my life.”
“I didn’t start writing my own stuff until I was maybe 13 or 14, but since I was 10, I was playing out at different venues, different clubs and stuff,” Huna said. “… I remember the first day I started working on a song. It was Feb. 14, 2014, with a good friend of mine, Steve Oliver. He’s a multi-Billboard No. 1 smooth-jazz guitar guy. He helped me write my first song, which eventually went to radio when I was 15, and then we kept working on new music all the way up until an album which came when I was 17, called On the Chase. That was kind of my introduction to songwriting, and it was cool watching Steve, because it was a new thing for me. It was a really big stepping stone for me, because nowadays, I’m able to produce my own stuff and write my own music.”
Since Huna’s tracks are all instrumental, the sax takes the spotlight.
“I want the sax in my music to be the lead instrument, instead of it being like any classic song with a sax solo in the middle, and the main feature is the vocal,” he said. “Because there are no vocals in my music, there’s got to be a lead. I figured, we’re writing the songs, and they’re going to be my songs that I play live, so I should be the lead guy on this and just kind of take the vocal part. … You see a bunch of sax players do this all the time, even if you go all the way back to 1920s, ‘30s big band era-style jazz.”
While Huna loves jazz, there’s no denying that Huna also loves pop music, whether it’s through Huna’s cover selections (Dua Lipa, for example) or through specific tracks in his own discography.
“As much as I love smooth jazz and playing it live, I don’t think there’s anyone my age that is listening to that voluntarily over more hip hop, rap and pop,” Huna said. “Jazz doesn’t really catch their ear, so in my music, what I try to do is write stuff that not only can relate to jazz, but can also relate to pop. I write music that my friends want to listen to, and yes, some of them are band guys who were friends in high school, but they still have an understanding of what cool jazz sounds like, and they also have an understanding of what they like in the pop/hip-hop world. … I try to put those two influences together in my songwriting, and really just try to relate to more than one audience.”
Huna’s new single, “East Coast Swing,” is a prime example of this genre collision. While jazz progressions appear when Huna and the piano player trade off, the overall drive and bouncy feel of the track exhibits pop vibes. The track is set for a June 9 release.
“I’d say (‘East Coast Swing’) is the most jazz song I’ve written, but I can also hear it in a pop/hip-hop setting,” Huna said. “My girlfriend always says it’s ‘Hannah Montana, the best of both worlds.’ It really does feel like I contain those two different sides, those two different audiences. It can be listened to by people who love jazz, but I believe people who love hip hop and R&B and those different styles can also have it relate to them. … I feel like they can really groove to it.”
The jazz and pop meld of Huna’s music is right at home in the Coachella Valley, where Huna can entertain an older crowd with jazz favorites, and impress a younger crowd with pop-sensible sax skills.
“There’s no place like Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, because you do have those different audience demographics, and especially nowadays, you’ve got younger families moving into the desert all the time,” Huna said. “People are saying the desert is getting younger, and you do see it, especially when I go out to these hockey games. … It’s getting younger all the time, and I think right now, it’s a perfect time for me living out here.”
For more information, visit www.chasehuna.com.
