Miles Okazaki: Thisness
Pi Recordings
Miles Okazaki achieved deserved recognition as a member of Steve Coleman's Five Elements and for Work, his audacious solo guitar recording featuring transcriptions of Monk's compositional oeuvre. But it's the three Trickster releases he's issued on Pi Recordings that make the strongest argument for his gifts as a composer, bandleader, and player. It certainly doesn't hurt that joining him on the ride are musicians of consummate skill, keyboardist Matt Mitchell, bassist Anthony Tidd, and drummer Sean Rickman. Without departing entirely from its predecessors in general tone, Thisness departs from 2017's Trickster and 2019's The Sky Below in loosening the reins of control and embracing the creative possibilities afforded by collective improvisation.
To facilitate the performances, Okazaki provided themes as springboards and connecting hubs as, in his words, “traffic circles, or bus stations.” Using cues, he guided his partners through transition points and directional pathways. Through-composition is eschewed for improvisations that develop from blueprints, with the leader likening the process to the exquisite corpse idea associated with the Surrealists. Adding to the recording's appeal, Okazaki plays a variety of guitars, though a 1940-circa Gibson ES-150 “Charlie Christian” axe is primary. The presence of different guitar timbres adds significantly to the music, and also adding to the sound design, a programmed “robot” improvises along with the tracks, the result extra layers of chatter and snarl to stimulate the ears.
“In Some Far Off Place” introduces the album with an evocation of paradisiacal splendour, all lustrous acoustic strums, keyboard sprinkles, and flowing rhythms, before a transition sends the music spiraling in a funk-inflected direction and a subsequent cue brings with it an injection of even greater energy. With Rickman doling out a tight groove for “Years in Space,” the guitarist sounds like he's channeling Rufus and Chaka Khan's “Tell Me Something Good” in the descending line of his guitar riffing. “I'll Build a World” offers a terrific illustration of the quartet's strength as a unit: while Tidd's solid pulse anchors a swirling drum pattern, Okazaki and Mitchell extemporize freely, their acrobatic lines entwining to head-spinning effect. With all four having played with Coleman (Mitchell on the Morphogenesis release and the others as Five Elements members), it's understandable that the playing might sometimes recall the sound of his band, albeit with the saxophone omitted. To that end, the slinky start to “And Wait For You” sounds like trademark Coleman, though in this instance it's Okazaki who's riding the groove.
As satisfying as it was to hear Okazaki play in the saxophonist's band, one downside was that less of his guitar was featured in that context. In his own outfit, that's rectified: Thisness is packed with guitar, though not so much that Mitchell's overshadowed when the fleet-fingered pair share the soloing. In a very real sense, Tidd and Rickman solo all the time as the two, who've played together for years, deliver the trickiest of grooves like it's the easiest thing in the world. The elasticity of their playing is a constant source of pleasure, and the same might be said of the conversational to-and-fro between all four. Executing music of intricate and ever-evolving character, they're operating at a high level, yet the music never feels anything but spontaneous and alive.April 2022