Boomtown [CD]

Boomtown is guitarist/composer Miles Okazaki's latest work for large ensemble. It follows on his Miniature America from 2024, which was described by Ethan Iverson as "meticulously assembled, absolutely a blast to listen to, and informed by a generous - even carefree - spirit." The idea for the new album came to Okazaki on a drive across Wyoming. Unlike much of his recent work with his band Trickster, which are often precise mechanical devices driven by intricate rhythms, Boomtown is filled with grand gestures - a journey that swings from desolate, pastoral beauty and tumultuous ruin that befit a western landscape. The music tells the story of an imaginary boomtown: the exhilaration of hopes and dreams, and it's collapse into destructive lawlessness and abandonment. To help conjure that duality of sublime and ominous, Okazaki assembled a collection of ten musicians: saxophonists Caroline Davis, Jon Irabagon, and Anna Webber, trombonists Jacob Garchik and Kalia Vandever, bassists Chris Tordini and Hannah Marks, pianist Matt Mitchell, drummer Dan Weiss and Okazaki on guitars. Together, they make music that is by turns filled with profound beauty and menacing dread.