Ars Nova Workshop presents guitarist Miles Okazaki performing the complete Thelonious Monk songbook at Solar Myth on Friday, October 11.

Miles Okazaki is a NYC-based guitarist whose approach has been described by the New York Times as “utterly contemporary, free from the expectations of what it means to play a guitar in a group setting — not just in jazz, but any kind.” His sideman experience over the last two decades covers a broad spectrum, from standards to experimental music: Kenny Barron, John Zorn, Stanley Turrentine, Dan Weiss, Steve Coleman, Jane Monheit, Amir ElSaffar, Darcy James Argue, and many others. He has released nine albums of original compositions over the last 12 years on the Sunnyside, Pi, and Cygnus labels.

In 2018 Okazaki received wide critical acclaim for his six-album recording of the complete compositions of Thelonious Monk for solo guitar, an unprecedented project that Nate Chinen called “the six-string equivalent of a free solo climb up El Capitan.” Okazaki will now bring that “heroic” (NPR) project to Solar Myth, delving deep into the repertoire of one of the 20th century’s most influential and individual composers while striking what the Free Jazz Collective called a “balance between the personal and the reverential.”