
"I don’t like any type of art that has to be explained."
The profoundly prolific guitarist leads his band of tricksters through a surrealist sonic exploration of deep, esoteric rhythms and intricate interplay on Thisness.
On his new album Thisness, Miles Okazaki is credited as playing guitar, voice, and robots. If you imagine that the reference to robots is some sort of artsy kitsch—like trapping a Roomba Robot Vacuum into a tight space to sample its struggles as it percussively barrels into the four walls—you’re very far off the mark. Okazaki—who has an elite academic pedigree with degrees from Harvard, Manhattan School of Music, and Julliard, and currently holds a faculty position at Princeton University (after leaving a post at the University of Michigan, to which he commuted weekly from his home in Brooklyn for eight years)—wasn’t kidding.
“The robots are machines that I made in Max/MSP,” clarifies Okazaki. (Max/MSP is visual programming language for music and multimedia.) “It’s kind of a long story, but I’ve been doing this stuff on the side for 20 years or so. Some of the music theory, some of the conceptual stuff involved in the album, I programmed into these things that I built. These improvising machines can do things that humans can’t do. They’ll play faster than humans, but they’ll fit in because they’re playing the same type of material.”
I'll Build a World, by Miles Okazaki
Okazaki explains that he creates parameters for the robots to improvise within: “I’m just telling this robot, ‘Play at this tempo and play this many subdivisions per beat—eight subdivisions or something like that—so that it’s linked up with the drums.” For pitches, he assigns a scale and can control the phrasing. “I’m saying for the pitch choices, ‘You’re going to use a chromatic scale and you’re going to play each note of that scale until you exhaust the scale without repeating a note,’ which makes a 12-tone row. It could be any scale, but that’s one of the settings that I have made in there. [After each 12-tone row is done] I tell it, ‘You’re going to take a little break, but I don’t want it to be the same break every time,’ so that it’s a phrase.”
To get a sound that convincingly blended in with the rest of the tracks, Okazaki had keyboardist Matt Mitchell run the robots through his Prophet Six analog synth. “I wrote a file of them improvising and ran that file through the synth,” explains Okazaki. “Matt would do the sounds for it,” so both the robots and Mitchell used the same Prophet Six in their own way.
“I’ve never been that interested in imitating anybody’s style.”
Okazaki, a family man with three children, seems busy in all parts of his life, but he must have learned to maximize his time because he’s incredibly productive. In 2018, he recorded his magnum opus, the critically acclaimed Work—a five-hour, 70-song marathon of the complete works of Thelonious Monk, all performed on solo guitar. It’s a project he’s wanted to do since his teen years. But in the process, he labored so relentlessly that he ignored his body’s warning signs and suffered a repetitive stress injury. That didn’t stop him from intensely preparing for and entering the New York City Marathon just a few months later. When that chapter was over, Okazaki again focused on his musical pursuits and proceeded to record several more albums, both as a leader and side musician.
Thisness is Okazaki’s fifth album in a three-year period and reflects his collaborative approach. It features his Trickster band, which includes Mitchell on keyboards, Anthony Tidd on electric bass, and Sean Rickman on drums. Okazaki has worked with each of these musicians for years, both in his own group and in saxophonist Steve Coleman’s, and they’ve developed a creative relationship that made it possible to record complex music quickly. The entire album was recorded over a two-day span with the quartet recording live on day one and overdubs the following day.
The Trickster band (left to right): bassist Anthony Tidd, keyboardist Matt Mitchell, drummer Sean Rickman, and Miles Okazaki.
And the music on Thisness is incredibly complex. Though Okazaki has studied Indian music seriously, his compositions are also somewhat reminiscent of contemporary Western classical music. You’ll see no shortage of odd note groupings, polyrhythms, and mixed meters carving out space for intricate atonal melodies throughout. Plenty of advanced jazz musicians that proudly boast about their ability to play John Coltrane’s “Countdown” in all 12 keys would cower in fear if they were asked to perform some of Okazaki’s works.
Despite the puzzling, esoteric nature of his compositions, Okazaki’s roots draw from the jazz tradition. After initially starting on classical guitar at age 6, he developed an interest in jazz at 12 and was doing solo guitar gigs at a local Italian restaurant by age 13. His first guitar teachers were Michael Townsend and Chuck Easton (a bebop-influenced Berklee grad), and he took music theory group classes in a cabin in the woods with a teacher named Alex Fowler.
Miles Okazaki’s Gear
Miles Okazaki can be seen with a host of instruments, but his 1978 Gibson ES-175, which has a Charlie Christian pickup, is his most common 6-string companion.
Photo by John Rogers
Guitars
• 1937 Gibson L-50
• 1940 Gibson ES-150 Charlie Christian (bought with matching EH-150 amp)
• 1963 Gibson C-O Classical
• 1978 Gibson ES-175 with Charlie Christian pickup
• 2018 Slaman “Pauletta” with Charlie Christian pickup modified with adjustable pole pieces drilled into the blade. A hum-canceling coil was recently added by Ilitch Electronics.
• 2002 Yamaha SA2200
• 2016 Kiesel HH2
• 2008 Caius quarter-tone guitar
Amps
• Quilter Aviator Cub
• Quilter Tone Block 200
• Raezer’s Edge Twin 8 cabinet
Effects
• Boss OC-2 Octave
• Boomerang III Phrase Sampler with Side Car controller
• One Control Mosquito Blender Expressio
• Gamechanger Audio Plus Pedal
• Dunlop CBM95 Cry Baby Mini Wah
• Boss RV-5 Digital Reverb
• Analog Man Peppermint Fuzz
• MXR GT-OD
• Electro-Harmonix Micro POG
• Dunlop DVP4 Volume
• Sonic Research ST-300 tuner
Strings and Picks
• Thomastik-Infeld Flatwound .013s (Gibson ES-150 Charlie Christian and Slaman “Pauletta”)
• Thomastik-Infeld Flatwound .014s (Gibson ES-175 with Charlie Christian pickup and Caius)
• Thomastik-Infeld Flatwound .012s (Yamaha SA2200)
• Thomastik-Infeld Flatwound .011s (Kiesel HH2)
• D’Addario Roundwound .014s (Gibson L-50)
• D’Addario Pro-Arte high tension nylon (Gibson C-O)
• Fender .88 mm for .012 strings, 1.0 mm for .014 strings
• Homemade picks using Pick Punch (Preferred material is American Express Delta Sky Miles Credit Card)
• Ilitch Electronics Driftwood pick
• Knobby picks bought from an Instagram metal shredder
During his teens, Okazaki went through a jazz-snob phase, and although he hails from Port Townsend, Washington, he never got into the nearby Seattle scene. “The ’90s, Nirvana and Soundgarden.… No, I kind of missed all that,” he admits. “I was there, but I was into Wes Montgomery and Thelonious Monk. I was stuck in the ’60s and ’50s at that point.” He still cites those musicians, in addition to Grant Green, George Benson, and Charlie Christian (whom he hailed as “the greatest guitarist that ever lived” in a blog post) as influences.
After attending Harvard University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English Literature, Okazaki came to New York to pursue his master’s degree in guitar at Manhattan School of Music. There, he found a mentor in Rodney Jones, a jazz/R&B player with tremendous chops. “I studied with, and continue to study with, Rodney,” explains Okazaki. “He was my teacher from 1997. I worked pretty closely with him for about 10 years, rebuilding my technique. My technique wasn’t good. You know I didn’t really have a teacher before him that really talked about guitar so much. I had teachers, but it was more just sort of like other people from other instruments. His technique is based on a hybrid George Benson type of deal. It has to do with the picking, but also there are many, many things that have to do with micro movements of the right hand. So, I spent a long time studying that. I still don’t really play like that, but I play kind of like a hybrid version of his hybrid version. Now mine is mixed with some other stuff.”
TIDBIT: On his new album, Okazaki creatively repurposed an influence in his approach to “And Wait for You”: “I played a piece of a Charlie Christian solo that I’m kind of riffing on. That’s a phrase from ‘Stompin’ at the Savoy’ but obviously the context here is a little different.”
Jones referred Okazaki to legendary saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, and Okazaki did a few gigs with the soul-jazz master shortly before his passing in 2000. It was around this period that Okazaki made his mark on the NYC jazz scene. He worked with vocalist Jane Monheit and was initially cast as a straight-ahead guitarist. “For a long time, I was just a standards player. I was pigeonholed in that area,” he recalls. “I did this weird stuff on the side—well, I didn’t consider it to be weird—but it was hard for people in their mind to imagine that you do different things.”
The guitarist found he was able to fully explore other sides of his playing when he landed a gig with Steve Coleman, whose M-Base Collective created a new language of incredibly challenging, forward-thinking music. From 2008 until 2017, Okazaki’s artistry thrived as he played alongside Coleman.
”I don’t know how many people you know that can play in James Brown’s band. It’s harder than playing in my band, that’s for sure.“
Very few players can comfortably hang with both the down-to-earth, bluesy jazz sounds of George Benson and the futuristic, ultra-heady maze of Coleman’s music like Okazaki can. The guitarist sees the two approaches as sharing common heritage. “Benson’s language is blues and R&B, and Steve Coleman’s is, too. There’s different theories and stuff behind it, but it’s not technically different to me,” he explains.
“If it was language, I’m interested in the grammar, not so much what language I’m speaking about,” he explains. “Or if it was cooking, I might be interested in the principles of ‘how do you cook a piece of meat,’ as opposed to, ‘I’m doing French cooking.’ George Benson has a style for sure, and a lot of people, when they learn about George Benson, will also sort of imitate his style. I’ve never been that interested in imitating anybody’s style. I kind of want to have my own style.”
Trickster performs during their recent residency at SEEDS:: Brooklyn.
Photo by Alain Metrailler
Okazaki’s style is radically different from both the sounds of his main guitar influences and other offerings in today’s jazz landscape. His abstruse music has been called academic, but that’s a label the guitarist isn’t particularly fond of. “I would push back a little on ‘academic’ because, first of all, I don’t like academic music,” he says. “I don’t like any type of art that has to be explained. When I go to an art museum, I don’t want to have to read the little blurb. I don’t want anybody to have to know anything about music to appreciate it. There are things involved in how it’s made that are interesting to me, but I don’t care if they’re interesting to anybody else, or I don’t want that to be a feature of it that’s really that important, unless people want to look for that.”
For Okazaki, his music might be also called academic, or complex, or cerebral, but that doesn’t explain his purpose, or set him apart. “James Brown is complex, or Robert Johnson is complex,” he says. “All these things are complex, meaning that they’re not easily explained. I don’t know how many people you know that can play in James Brown’s band. It’s harder than playing in my band, that’s for sure.”
“The test is: Does it sound good, or does it not sound good? That’s the only question for me.”
Complexity comes in many forms. Just because a piece of music happens to be based on one chord “that doesn’t mean that it’s simple,” Okazaki observes. He believes the opposite is true as well. “There are things that take a lot of work, and there’s a lot of machinations involved, and a lot of manipulation of materials and thought, and construction, and it still sounds like shit,” he laughs. “And there are things that are just one chord and amazing.”
As much as Okazaki is known as a musical thinker who can throw down some heavy information in his compositions and playing, what matters most is how it sounds. “It might look good on paper, but if it doesn’t sound like anything, then it’s not good,” he says. “The test is: Does it sound good, or does it not sound good? That’s the only question for me.”Trickster's Dream - "The Lighthouse"
The Trickster band was scheduled to go on a six-week tour starting in May 2020 but got derailed by the Covid lockdowns. Instead, they created a video concert featuring music from Okazaki’s 2019 release, The Sky Below. This version of “The Lighthouse” is from those sessions and captures the band conjuring the energy and spirit of playing to a captive audience.
A thick, varied take on the silicon Fuzz Face that spans punky, sparkling, and full-spectrum heavy.
Dimensional, thick variations on the silicon Fuzz Face voice. Surprisingly responsive to dynamics at most tube amp’s natural clean/dirty divide. Bass control lends range.
Thins out considerably at lower amp volumes.
$185
McGregor Pedals Classic Fuzz
mcgregorpedals.com
Compared to the dynamic germanium Fuzz Face, silicon versions sometimes come off as brutish. And even though they can be sonorously vicious, if dirty-to-clean range and sensitivity to guitar volume attenuation are top priorities, germanium is probably the way to go. The McGregor Classic Fuzz, however, offers ample reminders about the many ways silicon Fuzz Faces can be beastly, sensitive, and sound supreme.
Even though the two BC107B top hat transistors will look familiar to many who have poked around other SFF-style circuits, the Classic Fuzz is not precisely a silicon Fuzz Face clone. It’s distinguished by a low-pass filter “bass” control that true SFFs lack, but which widens its vocabulary extensively. In an A/B test with a solid, archetypal-sounding BC108 Fuzz Face clone, the Classic Fuzz sounded roughly equivalent at the 60-percent mark of the bass control’s range. But the Classic Fuzz was more dimensional, and on either side of the bass control I heard many intriguing tone variations spanning garage-punk snot and corpulent, almost triangle-Big Muff thickness.
Like most SFFs, the Classic Fuzz sounds best with a generous spoonful of amp volume. I ran it with a Fender Vibrolux just on the clean side of breakup. At amp volumes much lower than that, the fuzz voice thinned, the nuanced responsiveness to guitar volume attenuation dropped off, and the range of clean tones became much narrower. In its happy places, though, the Classic Fuzz rips—lending sparkling overdrive colors and banshee-scream aggression to Stratocasters and sounding especially sweet and terrifyingly mammoth with humbuckers
TOTO, CHRISTOPHER CROSS, and MEN AT WORK will embark on a North American tour in Summer 2025, produced by Live Nation. The tour kicks off on July 18 in West Palm Beach, FL, with tickets on sale December 13 at totoofficial.com. Citi cardmembers can access presale tickets starting December 11.
The run commences on July 18 in West Palm Beach, FL, and will stage several dozen appearances prior to the final event on August 30 in Ridgefield, WA. The general on-sale begins Friday, December 13 at 10AM local time here: totoofficial.com. Citi is the official card of this tour. Citi cardmembers will have access to presale tickets in the U.S. beginning December 11 at 10AM local time through the Citi Entertainment program. For complete presale details, visit citientertainment.com. Additional performances not cited below will be forthcoming shortly.
Steve Lukather shares, “I am thrilled about this tour. Christopher and Colin have been close friends of mine for a long time. This is a tour that musically works, and brings a fresh new Summer tour package to the circuit. I could not be more thrilled an idea that germinated months ago was able to take flight and become a reality.” Colin Hay offers, “The mix of Christopher, Steve with Toto, and Men At Work rings true to me. I think it will make for an exciting night of music for old and new fans alike. Let’s go!!” Christopher Cross states, “I’m honored to be sharing the stage during the summer of 2025 with my dear friends Toto and Men At Work.”
Toto has celebrated one accomplishment after the next throughout 2024. The song “Africa” has been certified DIAMOND for sales of TEN MILLION copies by the RIAA in The United States. Current cumulative sales now exceed 10.5M. Additionally, “Hold The Line” has been certified triple platinum for sales of three million copies, while “Rosanna” hit the milestone of double platinum with sales of two million copies. Both “Africa” and “Hold The Line” have reached the milestone of a BILLION streams on Spotify. Cumulative Toto album sales now exceed 50 MILLION copies, while the band’s repertoire is played more than THREE MILLION times daily on Spotify alone by an audience that continues to get younger month to month. Consistently, over 50% of the band’s streams are from those 34 years or younger. Total streams now exceed 4 BILLION at Spotify, and 6 BILLION across all platforms.
Individually and collectively the band’s family tree can be heard on countless Grammy Award winning albums across all genres. Toto are one of the few 70’s bands that have endured the changing trends and styles while continuing to remain relevant. Joining Steve Lukather (guitar/vocals) and Joseph Williams (vocals) are Greg Phillinganes (keyboards / vocals), Shannon Forrest (drums), John Pierce (bass), Warren Ham (horns / percussion / vocals), and Dennis Atlas (keyboards / vocals).
Grammy Award-winning rock band Men At Work formed in Melbourne, Australia in 1979 and are best known for the breakthrough hits that include the billion streamed "Down Under," alongside "Who Can It Be Now?," "Be Good Johnny," "Overkill," and "It's a Mistake." The band achieved a global success as a Grammy-winning, multi-platinum selling act before disbanding in 1985. Due to demand, members Colin Hay and Greg Ham reunited in 1996, and revived Men At Work, touring the world until 2002. Following the death of Greg Ham, and while touring Europe as part of Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band in 2018, Colin Hay again entertained the idea of touring once more as Men At Work and has continued to do so since 2019. The band’s current touring line-up features Jimmy Branly on drums, Yosmel Montejo on bass, and San Miguel on guitar, all originally hailing from Cuba. On sax, flute and keyboards is Scheila Gonzalez, and Cecilia Noël performs harmony vocals and percussion. Steve Lukather and Colin Hay are close friends who have wanted to tour together for a long time. They are both members of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band.
Special guest Christopher Cross and the members of Toto have been friends and collaborators for more than four decades. On September 1, they appeared with one another in front of a capacity crowd at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl. In February, Cross will tour Europe with Toto on a run that will stage performances in front of a potential quarter million fans. Joining Cross are Francis Arnaud (drums), Kevin Reveyrand (bass), Jerry Leonide (piano), Andy Suzuki (winds & keys), and vocalists Lisbet Guldbeck, Chrissi Poland and Nicky Richards.
Christopher Cross burst onto the music scene with his 1980 self-titled debut album winning five Grammy Awards, including – for the first time in Grammy history – the “Big Four” most prestigious awards: Record of the Year (for the single “Sailing”), Album of the Year, Song of the Year (“Sailing”), and Best New Artist. In a career spanning more than four decades, Cross has sold more than 12 million albums. His music has garnered five Grammys, an Oscar, a Golden Globe, an Emmy nomination and five Top 10 singles.
For more information, please visit totoofficial.com.
- 7/18 West Palm Beach, FL iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre
- 7/19 Tampa, FL MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
- 7/21 Birmingham, AL Coca-Cola Amphitheater
- 7/22 Alpharetta, GA Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
- 7/24 Burgettstown, PA The Pavilion at Star Lake
- 7/25 Holmdel, NJ PNC Bank Arts Center
- 7/26 Boston, MA Leader Bank Pavilion
- 7/28 Gilford, NH BankNH Pavilion
- 7/30 Bridgeport, CT Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater
- 8/01 Atlantic City, NJ Hard Rock Live at Etess Arena
- 8/03 Cincinnati, OH Riverbend Music Center
- 8/05 St. Louis, MO Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
- 8/06 Noblesville, IN Ruoff Music Center
- 8/08 Cuyahoga Falls, OH Blossom Music Center
- 8/09 Tinley Park, IL Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre
- 8/11 Clarkston, MI Pine Knob Music Theatre
- 8/13 Bristow, VA Jiffy Lube Live
- 8/14 Charlotte, NC PNC Music Pavilion
- 8/15 Nashville, TN Ascend Amphitheater
- 8/17 Oklahoma City, OK The Zoo Amphitheatre
- 8/18 Irving, TX The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory
- 8/21 Phoenix, AZ Arizona Financial Theatre
- 8/23 Las Vegas, NV Fontainebleau
- 8/24 Inglewood, CA Kia Forum
- 8/25 Concord, CA Toyota Pavilion at Concord
- 8/27 Salt Lake City, UT Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre
- 8/29 Puyallup, WA Washington State Fair (On-Sale Coming Soon)
- 8/30 Ridgefield, WA RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater
Nile Rodgers Put Rhythm Up Front (and Cory Wong Listened)
Funk-guitar wiz and Wong Notes host Cory Wong flips the script and sits in the 100 Guitarists guest chair.
Funk-guitar wiz and Wong Noteshost Cory Wong flips the script and sits in the 100 Guitarists guest chair. Wong cleared his schedule to talk about one Nile Rodgers’ work on the Halo 2 soundtrack. We were lucky that got him to return our call, but we did move on quickly.
Wong is a scholar of all things rhythm guitar—and that means all things Nile. We talk about how the Hitmaker voices his progressions—“You hear Nile play a chord progression … and it’s that song”—and the role of rhythm guitar in general. Cory delivers his list of best Nile performances, tips for direct guitar sounds, and most surprising Nile collabs.
Ever wonder what it would sound like if Nile Rodgers produced David Lee Roth covering Willie Nelson? Give a listen and drop us a know when you check it out for yourself.
This episode is sponsored by JAM Pedals.
More info: https://www.jampedals.com.
Joe Satriani and Steve Vai unite to form the SATCHVAI Band.
Kicking off on June 13, 2025, this monumental musical journey will feature stops in major cities like London, Paris, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam, and will also include performances at major European summer festivals including Hellfest, Umbria Jazz Festival and Guitares en Scene Fest. The tour is set to conclude in late July, with more dates to be announced soon.
The duo, along with each of their respective bands, initially joined forces for their first-ever tour together, outside of the G3 format, the past spring (2024) across select U.S. cities, and decided it was finally time to actually form a band together and bring that winning formula to the live stage, beginning in Europe.
Celebrating nearly five decades of musical friendship, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai made their first musical collaboration debut in March 2024. “The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1” showcases the unmatched synergy between these two legendary guitarists as they seamlessly trade solo sections throughout the nearly six-minute opus. Their second collaboration is set to be released just before the European tour, adding even more anticipation for this epic run.
Pre-sale tickets for “The SATCHVAI Band Tour” will be available starting Wednesday and Thursday December 11 and 12, with general sales opening on Friday, December 13.
Satch and Vai’s musical careers have been intertwined since their very early days. Satriani served as Vai’s guitar teacher during their teenage years on Long Island, New York. Their connection has continued to evolve over the years, even sharing record labels, starting at Relativity Records in the late 80’s, to both calling Sony/Epic Records home for a significant portion of the 90’s. Together, they have also frequently teamed up with a third guitarist on multiple occasions throughout the span of three decades, participating in the semi-annual G3 Tours, both in the U.S. and abroad.
“The SATCHVAI Band Tour is happening! I’m so looking forward to sharing the stage with Steve again,” Satriani said. “Every time we play together, it takes me back to when we were teenagers, eating and breathing music every second of the day, pushing, challenging, and helping each other to be the best we could be. I guess we’ve never stopped!”
Vai added, “Touring with Joe is always a pleasure and an honor. He is my favorite guitarist to jam with, and now we have another opportunity to take it to the stage. I feel as though we are both at the top of our game, and the show will be a powerful celebration of the coolest instrument in the world, the electric guitar!”
Joe Satriani has had a packed schedule having recently concluded the Sammy Hagar-led Best of All Worlds Tour, which was met with much fanfare and critical acclaim. While Steve Vai has been playing shows across the U.S. as part of the BEAT tour following the conclusion of the Satch/Vai tour earlier this year.
Surfing with the Hydra Tour 2025 Itinerary:
June 13 York, UK Barbican
June 14 London, UK Eventim Apollo
June 17 Glasgow, SC Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
June 18 Wolverhampton, UK Civic Hall
June 19 Manchester, UK O2 Apollo
June 21 Clisson, FR Helfest
June 22 Paris, FR Palais Des Congres
June 23 Antwerp, BE Lotto Arena
June 24 Amsterdam, NL Amsterdam Afas
June 26 Copenhagen, DK Amager Bio
June 29 Helsinki, FI House of Culture
June 30 Tampere, FI Tampere Hall
July 2 Uppsala, SE Parksnackan
July 3 Oslo, NO Sentrum Scene
July 5 Warsaw, PL Torwar
July 8 Munich, DE Tollwood Festival
July 10 Dusseldorf, DE Mitsubishi Electric Hall
July 11 Frankfurt, DE Jahrhunderthalle
July 12 Zurich, CH Volkshaus Zürich
July 13 Milan, IT Comfort Festival @ Villa Casati Stampa
July 15 Pordenone, IT Parco San Valentino
July 16 Perugia, IT Umbria Jazz
July 17 Bologna, IT Sequoie Music Park
July 18 Saint-Julien, FR Guitares en Scene Festival
July 20 Prague, CZ Forum Karlin
July 22 Sofia, BG National Palace of Culture
More dates TBA