Miles Okazaki's "Miniature America"

This new recording by guitarist-composer Miles Okazaki -- out July 19 on admirable artist-owned indie Cygnus Recordings -- is quite extraordinary, and it's taken me a few pleasurable spins to wrap my head around. 

Because it's inspired by visual art (sculptures by Ken Price, wall drawings by Sol Lewitt) and text (a radically edited page from Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, randomized final lines from poems) and co-produced with esteemed record-man David Breskin (Modney, Dan Weiss, Ches Smith), it's impossible for me not to view it as part of a continuum with previous art-inspired work Breskin has done with Bill Frisell (Richter 858), Nels Cline (Dirty Baby), Kris Davis and Craig Taborn (pieces played at the Museum of Modern Art here in Fort Worth in response to sculptures in the museum's collection). Unlike producers who focus on capturing what went down in the room -- a strategy I usually prefer -- Breskin likes to feed artists prompts to spark their creativity. 

I'll admit to being aware of Okazaki primarily as "the guy who recorded Thelonious Monk's entire canon for solo guitar" (WORK, 2018), but he's also recorded two trilogies of albums, MIRROR for Sunnyside (2009-2012) and Trickster for Pi (2017-2019). Since 2021, he's run the Cygnus label with drummer Dan Weiss; their double album Music for Drums and Guitar was the label's premiere release. While there's great guitaring aplenty on Miniature America -- including use of a quarter-tone instrument on "The Cavern" and fretless on "Whack A Mole" -- and an all-star band to boot, the real story here is the innovative compositional strategies Okazaki employs. 

Much of the work, the composer says, was done in post-production: "We made dozens of different little episodes. Dense blocks of sound. I took them home and carved away at them until just the minimum remained, and then played along." The sumptuously illustrated booklet that accompanies the CD provides some clues to his methods, including score examples. You can hear what Okazaki's talking about most clearly on "Lookout Below," where he plays rapid-fire unisons with a revolving cast of other instruments or voices. The rhythmic flow on "Wheel of Cloud" and "A Clean Slate" is provided by sequences of band members reciting the final lines from poems. On "Pulsation Station," Okazaki's guitar negotiates the territory between two groups playing at different speeds.

A thread running through the album is the melody which Matt Mitchell plays on piano over the crowd chatter -- which reappears pristine on "A Clean Slate" -- of opener "The Cocktail Party," trombonist Jacob Garchik essays over Okazaki's chords on "The Cavern," a choir of Ganavya, Jen Shyu, and Fay Victor sings on "The Firmament," and Ganavya solos on "In the Fullness of Time." 

Speaking of that all-star band, besides the aforementioned worthies, Miniature America is also graced by the contributions of vibraphonist Patricia Brennan (whose septet record Breaking Stretch drops September 6 on Pyroclastic), Caroline Davis on alto (whose recent collab with Wendy Eisenberg, Accept When, is a fave at mi casa), Anna Webber on tenor and flute (whose Shimmer Wince on Intakt from last year I need to hear), and Jon Irabagon (Mary Halvorson, Mostly Other People Do the Killing) on mezzo-soprano, sopranino, and slide sax. A fine bunch, whose collaborative spirit helped make this breathtaking album a reality.