Trickster: Live in Brooklyn

If one is looking for an artist whose ambition and indefatigable spirit seemed destined to withstand the rigors of the Covid pandemic and its deleterious impact on the jazz community, guitarist Miles Okazaki could be near the top of the list. A prolific and well-recorded musician before 2020, he maintained a rigorously creative schedule after it as well, with four albums released between 2020 and 2022, not the least of which was Trickster's Dream (Pi Recordings, 2020), Okazaki's resilient reclamation of the intensity and ingenuity of live performance even when the pandemic often made actual live recordings impossible. Joined by the other members of Trickster, one of Okazaki's prime ensembles—pianist Matt Mitchell, bassist Anthony Tidd and drummer Sean Rickman—Okazaki enabled his colleagues to record each of their individual parts separately from their respective cities, coming together virtually for what did indeed have the feel of a live record (minus the audience, regrettably). Or as Okazaki put it in his liner notes, he wanted something which could capture "what the group might sound like after a couple of weeks on the road playing material from our last album, tempos pushed, forms stretched, risks taken." Now, on Live in Brooklyn, we have an opportunity to hear the real thing, the result of a three-week residency in 2022 at SEEDS Brooklyn, a tiny club that gave the band the opportunity to take Okazaki's music to even greater heights, with an even more audible hunger and restless energy—and, importantly, a very appreciative audience.

The album, made courtesy of Tidd's own recording equipment, does a terrific job of conveying the ambience and intimacy of the club, with four musicians captured in a moment of sharpened creativity and a pronounced zeal for experimentation. Designed to make fortuitous use of the album's double-LP format (the release is also released digitally), each of the four "sides" runs in the thirteen to eighteen-minute range, which gives the band all the room it needs to craft re-envisioned incarnations of the music on Trickster's Dream, which was itself reworking earlier material from the group's debut, Trickster (Pi Recordings, 2017) and its successor, The Sky Below (Pi Recordings, 2019). The modularity of Okazaki's music allows for endless reconfigurations and surprising combinations, so hearing it in a live context is ideal, as the unpredictability of what can happen at each juncture is a large part of the music's appeal.

"Thisness (Part One)/Kudzu" starts in a capacious mode, with Okazaki's crisp lines floating over Mitchell's impressionistic accompaniment and a steady simmering churn from Tidd and Rickman. But with Trickster, it is only a matter of time before the group finds its groove, and its seamless transition to "Kudzu" allows for just that, with a relentless surge, thanks in large part to Mitchell's edgy left-hand ostinato and bracing rhythmic vitality. The second track, which merges Billy Strayhorn's "Lush Life" with "Dog Star," a piece from The Sky Below, may be even better, as the group takes the beauty of Strayhorn's melody (introduced gorgeously by Okazaki) and interweaves it with the persistent funk of "Dog Star." The result is less a transition than a sophisticated mash-up, allowing for both pieces to be enriched from the melding.

A similar kind of chemistry takes place on "Mischief/Caduceus Steps," where the band works its magic on two Okazaki pieces, "Mischief" and "Caduceus," but then augments the result with a brilliant nod to John Coltrane's "Giant Steps." Here the band showcases its unsurpassed musicianship, moving from Okazaki's Brazilian inflections on "Mischief" to the fierce odd-meter funk of "Caduceus" and finally to its frenetic interpretation of Coltrane's masterpiece (the last of which features some incredibly tight unison lines from Okazaki and Mitchell, always a marvel). "Thisness (Part Two)/Rise and Shine" may be even funkier, with a tenacious groove and superlative playing that builds inexorably to an anthemic finish, eliciting the crowd's joyous approval at the end of the set.

As we (hopefully) begin to look past the pandemic to the future of jazz and creative improvisation, efforts like this one will be savored as a reminder of just how inspiring it can be to hear top-shelf music made without constraints, and with a readiness for the unexpected. Kudos to Okazaki and his colleagues for continuing to point the way forward.

Comments