Miles Okazaki: The Complete Monk

“This is the first time the complete Monk songbook has been recorded on a single solo instrument,” read the liner notes of WORK, a six-disc, 70-track opus that the guitarist Miles Okazaki self-released in 2018. Pause a moment to consider the scale of that statement in two paradoxical ways: First, Monk’s catalogue is a holy text of jazz, with tunes like “’Round Midnight,” “Monk’s Mood,” and “Blue Monk” standing as absolute standards. It is astounding, then, that no solo instrumentalist has tried to tackle them all. But they are also complicated pieces, melodies webbed over rhythmic games that are difficult for any one player to handle. So it is astounding that someone would try at all. But as a bandleader, player and thinker at large, Okazaki is an ever-restless sort, driven by the unknown. His WORK is a fitting accomplishment.

Okazaki’s decision to tackle the 70 known Monk compositions solo was, in part, practical. “I need to spend a couple days on a tune,” he once admitted, “and you can’t do that in the studio with a group.” He was also, however, drawn to the conceptual and technical purity of the approach, by seeing how far he could push his mind and fingers with only an archtop guitar, a small amplifier, and no pedals. The critic Nate Chinen called the effort “the six-string equivalent of a free solo climb up El Capitan,” while it helped earn Okazaki major DownBeat honors and yielded a documentary of him working through the songbook in concert. At Big Ears, Okazaki will play once with his brilliant band Trickster, then play four sets in one day as he traverses the Monk catalogue from start to finish once more.