Trickster is guitarist Miles Okazaki's debut on Pi Recordings, having previously been featured on six other releases for the label. Perhaps best-known as a member of Steve Coleman and Five Elements, with whom he has played for the last eight years, Okazaki has also built a solid reputation for himself as one of the most adventurous composers and guitarists on the current scene. The New York Times says of Okazaki, "Even by the standard of his hyper-literate post-bop peer group, Mr. Okazaki is an unusually calculating musical thinker" and as a guitarist, "exceedingly skilled with a head for rhythmic convolution."
His new album is inspired by ancient trickster figures: characters who use mischief and magic to disrupt the state of things, breaking taboos and conventions, while opening new doorways. He chose the stories of Eshu, Raven, Krishna, Heyoka, Thoth, and Hermes, with their themes of mischief, disguise, paradox, chaos, illusion, and balance as the basis of musical structures and improvisations. Joining Okazaki is pianist Craig Taborn, perhaps the most widely-admired pianist on the cutting-edge of jazz, who brings a supremely inventive musical sense to everything he does. It s also a rare opportunity to hear, in a different context, the unique chemistry between bassist Anthony Tidd and drummer Sean Rickman: the long-running rhythmic engine behind Steve Coleman and Five Elements. Together they spin the yarns of these musical tales with conviction and aplomb.
Discogs | Amazon
