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Miles Okazaki is an American jazz guitarist, composer, and teacher based in New York City. Known for a versatile, rhythmic approach to improvisation and composition, he is a first-call sideman and collaborator. As a leader his second album, 2009′s Generations, earned accolades from critics and musicians for his unusual phrasing and uncommon compositional style. After 2013′s live Figurations, Okazaki joined Jonathan Finlayson's Sicilian Defense and Steve Coleman's Five Elements. Okazaki recorded Trickster, his Pi Recordings debut, in 2017; it won acclaim across the international jazz spectrum. He followed it in 2019 with The Sky Below, leading a new quartet with drummer Sean Rickman, keyboardist Matt Mitchell, and bassist Anthony Tidd. 2021′s Hive Mind on Tzadik showcased a collective improvisational trio with bassist Trevor Dunn and drummer Dan Weiss. In 2022, Okazaki returned to Pi with his quartet for Thisness. He is also an educator who taught at the University of Michigan, the Banff Institute, New School, Queens College, and The Juilliard School.
Okazaki grew up in Port Townsend, Washington. He began studying classical guitar at age six. He later furthered his musical education at the Centrum Jazz Workshop and was playing regular gigs on electric guitar at 14. He was often awarded throughout his early years, and eventually placed second in the Thelonious Monk International Guitar Competition.
Okazaki moved to New York City in 1997 to pursue a musical career. He studied with Rodney Jones, who recommended him for his first gig with Stanley Turrentine. Okazaki spent four years on the road with vocalist Jane Monheit, and recorded with her on three albums between 2004 and 2007. He also played on Jesse Malin’s 2004 album The Heat. During his time with Monheit, he was also writing and rehearsing the music for his first album, Mirror, which was released independently in 2005 to critical acclaim. The same year, he played on Dan Weiss’ otherwise unaccompanied Tintal Drumset Solo, beginning an extended recording and working relationship with the drummer.
As a sideman, Okazaki works in many areas, ranging from standard repertoire to experimental music. Since 2008, he has been the guitarist with Steve Coleman & the Five Elements. His second album, Generations, was issued in 2009 on Sunnyside. A septet offering, its core band — drummer Weiss, alto saxophonist Miguel Zenón, and bassist Jon Flaugher — was appended by tenor saxophonists David Binney and Christof Knoche, as well as vocalist Jen Shyu. He followed it with the acclaimed quartet session Figurations in 2012, which included Weiss, Zenón, and bassist Thomas Morgan.
Over the next several years, Okazaki played extensively with other artists. He contributed to multiple recordings by Jonathan Finlayson, Coleman, Weiss, and others. In 2016, he participated in no less than five albums while writing, recording, and producing his own effort, Trickster. Issued in the spring of 2017 by Pi, the album included two of his Five Elements bandmates, bassist Anthony Tidd and drummer Sean Rickman, as well as pianist Craig Taborn. It was inspired by Lewis Hyde’s book Trickster Makes This World, and in particular, its chapters on the stories of Eshu, Raven, Krishna, Heyoka, Thoth, and Hermes. Their themes of mischief, disguise, paradox, chaos, illusion, and balance became the basis of musical structures and improvisations over nine original compositions. The following year, Okazaki self-released his Work, Vols. 1-6 (The Complete Compositions of Thelonious Monk) as a set, and was part of Coleman's Five Elements for Live at the Village Vanguard, Vol. 1: The Embedded Sets. That band included the guitarist’s own rhythm section and Finlayson on trumpet.
In the late summer of 2019, Okazaki released The Sky Below, his sophomore date for Pi Recordings, and a proper sequel to Trickster with Tidd, Rickman, and Matt Mitchell on pianos and synths. 2021 saw the guitarist back on Tzadik in a collaborative improv band with drummer Weiss and bassist Trevor Dunn for the album Hive Mind. Label boss John Zorn joined the group on two of the album’s tracks. In 2022, Okazaki’s own quartet from The Sky Below rejoined him for Thisness on Pi Recordings. Its music was influenced simultaneously by a magical “far-off place” called Salt Creek, from a watercolor by Linda Okazaki, the writings on Surrealism by Robin D.G. Kelley, architectural concepts from producer David Breskin, and the poetry of Sun Ra. The idea was to create a sound that discarded notions of logic and control and strove to achieve something akin to collective dreaming. ~ Thom Jurek