Bio (long)

Miles Okazaki is an American guitarist and composer based in New York City. His musical style is 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.” 

Background:

Okazaki grew up in Port Townsend, Washington, a small town near the Olympic Mountains in the Pacific Northwest. He comes from a family of visual artists and builders. He began music on classical guitar at age 6, moved on to study for several years at the Centrum Jazz Workshop, and was playing regular gigs on electric guitar by age 14. He received many awards as a guitarist throughout his early years, and moved to New York City in 1997 to pursue a career in music. His teacher on guitar at this time was Rodney Jones, who recommended him for his first touring dates, with Stanley Turrentine. Okazaki spent a number of years on the road with vocalist Jane Monheit, found work as an accompanist and arranger, and in 2005 took 2nd place in the Thelonious Monk guitar competition.

Mirror and Trickster trilogies:

In 2006, Okazaki began producing recordings of his own material. His debut album Mirror was released independently and received a “Critic’s Pick” in the New York Times, calling it “a work of sustained collectivity as well as deep intricacy.” He signed with Sunnyside Records and expanded to a septet for his second album Generations, described by pianist Vijay Iyer as “the sonic equivalent of Escher or Borges, but with real emotional heft” in Artforum’s “Best Music of 2009.” His third album, Figurations, was recorded live at the Jazz Gallery in NYC with a quartet, and was selected as one of the New York Times top ten albums of 2012, described by Ben Ratliff as “slowly evolving puzzles of brilliant jazz logic.” After completing the MIRROR trilogy, Okazaki turned to a new band and label, releasing Trickster in 2017 on Pi Recordings to wide acclaim, including editor’s picks in Downbeat and JazzTimes and Best of 2017 lists in the Los Angeles Times and Pop Matters. Trickster was described as “a true concept album” by the Wall Street Journal, and “a mature work for the ages” by Pop Matters.  The sequel to Trickster, The Sky Below, was released in October of 2019, again making many end-of-year lists, and called a “lyrical spin on advanced ideas” by Rolling Stone magazine. A “live” album, Trickster’s Dream, was recorded at different locations in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown and assembled as a concert film, described in The Paris Review as “freakishly precise, but also full of emotion.” Okazaki completed the Trickster trilogy in 2022 with the release of Thisness, where Robin D.G. Kelley’s liner notes introduce the music as “convulsive beauty, propulsive rhythm, elusive meaning...a spontaneous and unpredictable work of art.” After the release of Thisness, the Trickster band received the opportunity for a three-week residency which led to the recording of the double album“Live in Brooklyn,” which captured their live performance style for the first time and was lauded by Nate Chinen as “a staggering testament to the high degree of intellectual rigor and intuitive play among these musicians.”

Other Albums:

In 2018, Okazaki released WORK, his first album of standard repertoire, a five-hour performance of the complete compositions of Thelonious Monk for solo guitar. WORK was praised by critic Nate Chinen as “an act of immersive scholarship and exhaustive scope . . . a singular achievement;” and selected by the New York Times as one of the best albums of 2018, described as a “monumental statement of devotion.” This was the first time the complete works of Thelonious Monk had been recorded by a solo instrument. In 2019, Okazaki was voted #1 Rising Star on guitar in the Downbeat Critic’s Poll. Okazaki also works in the area of free improvisation, and in 2021 recorded an album with drummer Dan Weiss and bassist Trevor Dunn featuring John Zorn, released as Hive Mind on the Tzadik label. In 2021Okazaki and Weiss founded the Cygnus Recordings record label in order to release a double album, Music For Drums and Guitar, a showcase for their longstanding collaboration, a connection that WBGO called “composer-improvisers of absurdly expansive imaginative resources . . . nearly telepathic rapport.” In 2022 Cygnus released another percussion/guitar duet album with Eventide, a session with Okazaki and mrudangam artist Rajna Swaminathan.

Sideman:

As a sideman, Okazaki works in many areas ranging from standard repertoire to experimental music. In recent years, he has worked with a variety of artists including Kenny Barron, John Zorn, Jonathan Finlayson, Amir ElSaffar, Adam Rudolph, Miguel Zenón, Dan Weiss, Nasheet Waits, Aka Moon, Linda Oh, Darcy James Argue, Jon Irabagon, Jane Monheit, Vijay Iyer, Francois Moutin, Carl Allen, Ohad Talmor, Mary Halvorson, Jen Shyu, Mark Giuliana, Patrick Cornelius, Rajna Swaminathan, Matt Mitchell, Alexis Cuadrado, Craig Taborn, Tony Moreno, Ben Wendel, and Donny McCaslin. He was widely seen as a member of Steve Coleman and Five Elements from 2008-2017.

Publications and awards:

Okazaki’s first book, Fundamentals of Guitar, was released on Mel Bay Publications in 2015. It is an exhaustive study of harmonic and rhythmic possibilities on the instrument. In 2022 he released a book on set theory, 351 shapes, that takes the reader through all possible scales in equal temperament in the course of a calendar year. He taught guitar and rhythmic studies at the University of Michigan from 2013-22, and joined the facutly of Princeton University in 2021. He has also taught at the Banff Institute, The New School, Queens College, The Juilliard School, Amsterdam Conservatory, and many master classes all over the world. Outside of guitar, his past teachers include Anthony Davis (composition), Ganesh Kumar (Carnatic percussion), Nelson Faria (Brazilian guitar) and Kendall Briggs (counterpoint). His awards and grants include Chamber Music America’s “New Works” commission (2007), Chamber Music America’s “French-American Jazz Exchange” (2009), the Jazz Gallery and Jerome Foundations Residency Commission (2010), the American Music Center’s Composer Assistance Program (2011), the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation’s US Artists International grant (2012), the Rockefeller Brother’s Fund Artist Residency (2012), the Jazz Gallery Mentorship program (2015), the Shifting Foundation (2019, 2022). and South Arts Creative Residency (2022). He holds degrees from Harvard University (B.A.), Manhattan School of Music (M.M.), and The Juilliard School (A.D.), and lives in Brooklyn, NY.