Who is Joseph?
Joseph is an Orange County based chill dude! He preforms solo gigs featuring chill vibes and good times. He can often be found at local coffee shops, shows and events setting the vibe! He even jams out at weddings!
Joseph's Bio
Joseph Hufford, a 2024 graduating senior from Costa Mesa High School is an Orange County based chill dude! He has been playing music his whole life. His great grandmother loved to play piano and instilled a deep appreciation for music in Joseph while providing piano lessons. Music has impacted his life in so many ways and has made him quite the music enthusiast, specifically in Jazz and Blues. His biggest inspiration comes from the playing of Django Reinhardt, Pasquale Grasso, John Mayer and Wes Montgomery. He was a freshman in 2020 when the whole world shut down and that is when he took a deep dive into his own music. He spent hours daily studying jazz and music theory and developing his shredding skills on both piano and guitar! He joined piano class as a freshman and guitar class and jazz band as a sophomore and has continued through his senior year. In 2021 he had private piano lessons from Eric’s Piano School and some guitar lessons from Guitar Center and he also joined McCormick School of Music for private lessons in jazz guitar.
The end of 2021 is when the Joseph music experience exploded! He has been found shredding guitar at epic places all around Orange County ever since (Hola Adios Coffee Shop, WIP coffee shop, Huntington Beach Art Center, Ahba restaurant, Open Mic Nights at Hennessy’s Tavern, Moon Goat Coffee Shop, and Coffee Nature, the Stance store at Irvine Spectrum, Costa Mesa State of the City Address, Happy Photos: Bridal Show, Chamber Golf Tournament, and Chinese New Year Party, Whiskey a Go-Go and Tiki Bar with John Miler, Costa Mesa High School: Jazz Cabaret, Jazz band concert, Graduation Performance and multiple other school performances, Braver Players pit performance for a musical)! His epic performances have earned many accolades and awards including: Jazz Band 1 Rookie of the Year (2022), Mesa Jazz Festival Outstanding Soloist (2022), Woody Herman Jazz Award (2023), Orange County Register’s Artist of the Year Semi Finalist (2023), Outstanding Musicianship at the CC Jazz Festival (2023), Vanguard Solo ensemble Medal (2023), Outstanding Soloist Jazz Festival (2023), Superior Vanguard University ensemble (2023), and Orange County Register’s Artist of the Year nomination (2024) Stay tuned for the next round of this year’s Orange County Register’s Artist of the Year to see how far Joseph progresses!
His first guitar instrumental album, Coping Without Words, was just released to many music platforms. He wrote, recorded, mixed and mastered all of the music and released it independently! Coping Without Words is a chill jazzy/bluesy instrumental album using guitar to make sense of and describe emotions in everyday life. Music has taught him that by accepting where you are, you can finally start moving forward and expanding your ideas. He hopes to share his love of music with the world by continuing to provide guitar lessons through his Super Guitar Course, playing in jazz clubs, making more albums, and just experiencing music as much as possible. His goal is not to impact the world in some way, but if people are impacted by his music, it would be a side effect of him enjoying music. He believes if he places his values on what other people or what the world will think of his music, he won’t feel fulfilled until people complement his work. If he plays music for his own enjoyment, his happiness won’t be affected by what people think of his work, it will be affected by how true he believes his expressiveness was in his music.
The end of 2021 is when the Joseph music experience exploded! He has been found shredding guitar at epic places all around Orange County ever since (Hola Adios Coffee Shop, WIP coffee shop, Huntington Beach Art Center, Ahba restaurant, Open Mic Nights at Hennessy’s Tavern, Moon Goat Coffee Shop, and Coffee Nature, the Stance store at Irvine Spectrum, Costa Mesa State of the City Address, Happy Photos: Bridal Show, Chamber Golf Tournament, and Chinese New Year Party, Whiskey a Go-Go and Tiki Bar with John Miler, Costa Mesa High School: Jazz Cabaret, Jazz band concert, Graduation Performance and multiple other school performances, Braver Players pit performance for a musical)! His epic performances have earned many accolades and awards including: Jazz Band 1 Rookie of the Year (2022), Mesa Jazz Festival Outstanding Soloist (2022), Woody Herman Jazz Award (2023), Orange County Register’s Artist of the Year Semi Finalist (2023), Outstanding Musicianship at the CC Jazz Festival (2023), Vanguard Solo ensemble Medal (2023), Outstanding Soloist Jazz Festival (2023), Superior Vanguard University ensemble (2023), and Orange County Register’s Artist of the Year nomination (2024) Stay tuned for the next round of this year’s Orange County Register’s Artist of the Year to see how far Joseph progresses!
His first guitar instrumental album, Coping Without Words, was just released to many music platforms. He wrote, recorded, mixed and mastered all of the music and released it independently! Coping Without Words is a chill jazzy/bluesy instrumental album using guitar to make sense of and describe emotions in everyday life. Music has taught him that by accepting where you are, you can finally start moving forward and expanding your ideas. He hopes to share his love of music with the world by continuing to provide guitar lessons through his Super Guitar Course, playing in jazz clubs, making more albums, and just experiencing music as much as possible. His goal is not to impact the world in some way, but if people are impacted by his music, it would be a side effect of him enjoying music. He believes if he places his values on what other people or what the world will think of his music, he won’t feel fulfilled until people complement his work. If he plays music for his own enjoyment, his happiness won’t be affected by what people think of his work, it will be affected by how true he believes his expressiveness was in his music.