'Trickster' is guitarist Miles Okazaki's first album in five years and his much anticipated debut on Pi Recordings, having been featured on six other releases in the label's catalogue in groups led by Steve Coleman, Jonathan Finlayson, and Dan Weiss, along with associations with other Pi artists such as Matt Mitchell, Jen Shyu, and Amir ElSaffar.
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."
'Trickster' was originally inspired by Lewis Hyde's book Trickster Makes This World. As Okazaki describes it, "The trickster figure is an ancient archetype in human folklore. They are creative in nature, using mischief and magic to disrupt the state of things, breaking taboos and conventions, opening doorways. They exist outside of the mainstream, working from the margins, creating movement across the borders. They cause damage and they heal. They are storytellers and improvisers."
The music on 'Trickster' is designed to encourage risk-taking. There are many traps and deceptions, but navigating through these spaces open possibility of discovering new territory.
Personnel: Miles Okazaki (guitar), Craig Taborn (piano), Anthony Tidd (bass), Sean Rickman (drums)
