Miles Ozakaki's Trickster at Blues Alley

The trickster figure is an ancient archetype in human folklore. Tricksters 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. Because these ideas resonate with my approach to music-making, it occurred to me that the trickster could be a fertile theme for a new book of compositions. As I began my research, I looked for themes that seemed musical in nature, translating them into compositions for quartet...

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The trickster figure is an ancient archetype in human folklore. Tricksters 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. Because these ideas resonate with my approach to music-making, it occurred to me that the trickster could be a fertile theme for a new book of compositions. As I began my research, I looked for themes that seemed musical in nature, translating them into compositions for quartet. My main concern was that the musicians focus on testing the limits of each composition through improvisation, with the sensibility of storytelling in mind. The listener can get a sense of the trickster narratives by following the rhythms, which have many twists and turns and are not always what they seem to be.

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