Miles Okazaki’s Trickster

Please join us for a performance by the adventurous guitarist Miles Okazaki and his limitless quartet Trickster.

Miles Okazaki’s approach to the guitar 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, Matt Mitchell, Jonathan Finlayson, Jane Monheit, Amir ElSaffar, Darcy James Argue, and many others). He was a member of Steve Coleman and Five Elements from 2009-2017, while releasing five albums of original compositions along with a six-album recording of the complete compositions of Thelonious Monk for solo guitar.

On 2017’s Trickster, Okazaki premiered his mind-blowing new quartet featuring the rhythm section from Five Elements, bassist Anthony Tidd and drummer Sean Rickman, along with pianist Craig Taborn. The album also marked the beginning of a new approach to composition for Okazaki, one focused on mythology and storytelling, concerned primarily with narrative flow. It landed on several year-end lists including at Popmatters, which called it “a mature work for the ages.”

With Matt Mitchell stepping in for Taborn, the quartet’s second release, The Sky Below, adds a new chapter to the story, this one based on the classic form of an ocean voyage. In keeping with the sly, pranksterish archetype that lends its name to the band, Okazaki took a deviously playful approach to the writing of the music for the album, reducing each of the pieces from its predecessor and transforming those into new compositions built on the same genetic material.