miles okazaki - the sky below - sessions

Miles Okazaki is an established musician, a renowned guitar player and the TRICKSTER leading member since the group first release in 2016.
I’ve been very happy documenting the first TRICKSTER opus, see photos and videos here and when Miles asked me to document his next album this made my day!

Back in June 2019, Miles joins forces once again with his regular rhythm section teammates from Steve Coleman and Five Elements band but this time Matt Mittchell played the piano / keys for his music. Matt is a very unique talent and Miles knew that he would bring a totally new set of flavour to this new recording.

The material for The Sky Below was developed while touring with a new version of the Trickster band, a quartet of Okazaki on guitar, Matt Mitchell (taking over for Craig Taborn, who appeared on the first album) on piano, Anthony Tidd on electric bass, and Sean Rickman on drums.
The Sky Below adds a new chapter to the Trickster story, this time based on the classic form of an oceanic voyage.
- From Press Release.

Tiddster and Rickster

Anthony Tidd (Electric Bass) and Sean Rickman (Drums) are driving one of the most powerful yet creative rhythm section today, coming from horizons remotely associated with Jazz but deeply rooted in the Black Music legacy (you can add a fair amount of Rock for Sean as well!). Members of the first TRICKSTER opus back in 2016, they keep the house solid AND flexible, yes that’s a crazy challenge!

Together, they demonstrate the balancing act of negotiating abstract musical information while maintaining an unstoppable rhythmic drive.
- From Press release.

The sky below my airplane

Dreaming while looking thru a plane’s window has been a favorite activity of mine, and on my flight to the recording session it was no different. I was really curious to hear the new music Miles wrote for this album and at the same time I was confident that it would be challenging and original, but I had no idea how mesmerising that would be.

the basement

The plan was rather simple, 2 afternoons of rehearsals in Miles Basement and 2 days of recording at Systems Two. My goal was to document with videos and photos these days of creativity. Videos will follow but let’s focus on pictures for now, and I think they captured the mood pretty well.
Miles is very organised, everybody who worked with him knows that. He sent the music to the band a couple weeks in advance and he talked to each musicians before the session, giving directions but also looking for input and ideas.

The first tune they rehearsed gave me the impression that everybody worked their parts consciously beforehand, and therefore the run down thru each songs was fluid. Miles was asking for feedback with tempos on certain tunes, they also tried different combinations regarding solos and everybody was enthusiast and relax.

THE STUDIO

In the morning of June 13th, we drove to Systems Two recording facility and when we arrived there, Mike Marciano and Max Ross were already at work and happy to welcome the TRICKSTER gang once again.
As usual the first couple of hours are mainly setting up the instruments, checking microphones and drinking coffee. It was my first time at Systems Two’s new location and as a photographer Im always curious to see what lighting is available and to my surprise it was pretty good there!
Max showed me how to use their remote lighting gadget to create different moods, but at the end I used only the brightest mode available and to my surprise the musicians agreed on this white lighting.

As soon as the musicians sat down to their respective seats I set my cameras, a mix of Fuji Mirrorless DLSR’s and Camcorders + the mandatory GoPro as the overhead drums angle.
I did that while Max was setting all the microphones, doing the soundcheck and messing around with tens of mike stand around the drum kit!
I had time to pick up the right camera angle, and its always difficult to not obstruct vision between musicians and also avoiding criss-cross of cameras being in the shot, well at least here in this studio I had plenty of room to setup.

Max Ross was in charge of the recording session, he is an Award-winning recording engineer who began his career at Systems Two in 2002. He is involved pretty much in all the recording I’ve been there, he was part of the TRICKSTER first album as well. He is a key asset in this recording.

The group started by rehearsing one track while Max was warming up and moving his sliders, a few takes of Kudzilla, trying different parts and more important, each musician took the time to setup his headphone to his taste.

Hit the record button

The group was super efficient during this recording, and only 2 takes of each basic tracks were needed, Sean’s a great tempo locker and I dont remember the group used a Click during the session. Matt was playing piano the during the laying of the tracks and he played his overdubs right after the track was labeled as OK. Miles did some electric guitar overdubs on the same take as Matt’s, and he did his acoustic guitar overdubs on a separate room, separate take.

All the album basic tracks were done in either the thursday June 13th, or friday June 14th in the morning. Sean and Tidd were free by early afternoon on that second day. Sean stayed until the end of the session though, giving advices and joking all around.

fine tuning the sound

Friday Afternoon, Matt and Miles went thru each tracks to lay down the Extra Salsa, overdubs of fine tuned electric guitar effects, Rhodes skills and various Prophet 6 incredible sounds.

The Sky Below marks the first time that Okazaki has used guitar effects on his own albums since his debut release, MIRROR, in 2006. He is known primarily for possessing a clean acoustic sound played on the Gibson ES-175 Charlie Christian that he has used for the last 25 years. But here, he utilizes five different guitars to continually shift the sonic impression.
- From Press Release.

From my perspective, filming them was like filming kids having fun, both challenging the other one with some new ideas or new sounds. As soon as one take ended, they rushed into control room to listen to the take, only to rush back to their instruments and play once again.

Miles describes Mitchell’s role in the band: “Matt can do certain things on the fly, like generative improvising from cells and transformations, which is important for these tunes. He can play in a way that totally avoids “licks”
- From Press release.

Actually I think the music evolved a lot at this point, while the frame was well established by the rhythm section.
This was an intense moment of great communication between Miles and Matt, having fun while at the same time focused on the end result; crafting an album of creative music, away from known territories while at the same time being an evolution of the first TRICKSTER recording.

For these songs, Okazaki took each of the compositions from Trickster, reduced them to their basic components, and rewrote new compositions from this genetic material to carry on the story to a new generation with symbolic and sonic continuity.
- From Press release.

When I look back at the images I captured during this recording session I feel like a happy humble man.
Dimitri L.

All my gratitude goes to Miles, Matt, Tidd and Sean for their support in my work during all those years.

Be curious and you will be rewarded !

Miles OKAZAKI > http://www.milesokazaki.com/

Matt MITCHELL > http://www.mattmitchell.us/

Anthony TIDD >https://pirecordings.com/artists/anthony-tidd/

Sean “The Rick” RICKMAN > https://www.patreon.com/seanrickman

Pi Recordings > https://pirecordings.com/

Videos from theses session soon ….