Miles Okazaki / Trickster
Jazz Road Creative Residencies Grant Recipient
Recipient Information
Location
Brooklyn, New York
Year of Award
2021
Grant or Fellowship
Jazz Road Creative Residencies Grant
Grant Amount
$30,900
About the Project
Trickster (with Matt Mitchell, Sean Rickman, Anthony Tidd) will develop and perform music from recent albums that was unseen by the public due to cancelled tours. The band will perform the new work at SEEDS (Brooklyn) and publicize free afternoon concerts for the public and young musicians not able to participate in formal jazz education.
Residency Location
Brooklyn, NY
About the Artist
Miles Okazaki is a NYC-based guitarist originally from Port Townsend, a small seaside town in Washington State. His approach to the guitar 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.” 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 seen prominently with Steve Coleman and Five Elements from 2009–2017. As a leader, Okazaki has released six albums of original compositions over the last 12 years, and is currently an artist on the Pi Recordings label. In 2016, he formed the band Trickster, a vehicle for his most advanced and experimental compositions. In 2018, he released a six-album recording of the complete compositions of Thelonious Monk for solo guitar, which received massive attention from audiences and critics, and opened up a new career path of solo concert tours. In 2019, Okazaki was voted #1 Rising Star on guitar in the Downbeat Critic’s Poll.
Okazaki’s first book, Fundamentals of Guitar, was released on Mel Bay Publications in 2015. He has taught guitar and rhythmic studies at the University of Michigan since 2013. He has also taught at the Banff Institute, The New School, the School for Improvisational Music, Queens College, The Juilliard School, Amsterdam Conservatory, and many other institutions. 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), and the Shifting Foundation (2019). 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 with his wife and three children.