    Miles Okazaki is from Port Townsend, Washington, North of Seattle in the Pacific Northwest.    He is the son of a painter and photographer, and grew up with a strong interest in Visual Arts.    He was primarily a self-taught guitarist until he moved to New York City at the age of 22.   He graduated from Harvard University, Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard School, was 2nd place finalist in the 2005 Thelonious Monk Guitar Competition, and has received grants from Chamber Music America, the French-American Cultural Exchange, Jerome Foundation Jazz Gallery Residency Program, and the American Music Center.    His teacher on guitar is Rodney Jones.   He has toured and recorded with artists including Stanley Turrentine, Kenny Barron, and Steve Coleman and Five Elements.   He has written, produced, and illustrated two recordings of original material, and is preparing to release his third recording as a leader in the Spring of 2012 on Sunnyside Records.    Featured here are live tapes of Okazaki playing standards with various trios in New York City.   To find out about Okazaki as a composer, visit www.milesokazaki.com

The artistic scope of renowned saxophonist, composer, painter, and poet Oliver Lake’s half-century-long career is unparalleled. An extensive resume of his collaborations includes work with the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Flux String Quartet, Bjork, Lou Reed, A Tribe Called Quest, Mos Def, Me’shell Ndegeocello, Anthony Braxton, James Blood Ulmer, William Parker, Vijay Iyer, Reggie Workman, Andrew Cyrille and a veritable who’s who of the jazz vanguard. Oliver’s efforts extend far beyond the music, with his creation of the non-profit Passin’ Thru organization, becoming a mainstay at Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum, publishing two books of poetry and frequently producing visual artwork for exhibitions across the country.

Lake’s breadth of disciplines can be traced back to his formative years with the Black Artists Group, the innovative St. Louis collective of musicians, poets, dancers and painters he helped architect over 35 years ago. As a co-founder of the internationally acclaimed World Saxophone Quartet (with fellow luminaries David Murray, Julius Hemphill and Hamiet Bluiett), Oliver firmly established himself in the “Loft” jazz scene of the 1970’s in New York City, and has since produced a body of work that is both expansive and versatile enough to avoid falling solely into the trappings of the “avant-garde” and “free” labels. The fact that his work can stand on compositional merit alone, all while he has etched a place for himself as one of the elite saxophone players and improvisers of recent times, is a testament to Oliver Lake’s stature as an artist.

Lake’s output as an exacting and unequivocally original composer has long been celebrated, highlighted by commissions awarded from the Library of Congress, the Rockefeller Foundation ASCAP, the International Association for Jazz Education, Composers Forum and the McKim Foundation. He has been the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and was also presented with the Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award at the Kennedy Center in 2006.

In 2014, Oliver was honored with what is arguably the greatest recognition of his artistry and vision to date, becoming one of only nineteen grantees appointed for the prestigious Doris Duke Artist Award, a multi-year grant awarded to American artists in the fields of jazz, theater and dance. 

A trailblazer through and through, Oliver Lake continues to produce in the vociferous, uncompromising way he only knows how to, currently immersed in the work of such adventurous ensembles as the Oliver Lake Organ Quartet, Oliver Lake Big Band and Trio 3.

For more informations, visit oliverlake.net & facebook.com/oliverlakejazz


Saxophonist/Composer/Sunnyside and Fresh Sound New Talent recording artist.  This page is for album samples, live gig clips, new song demos, improvisations, maybe practice stuff and various other sounds.
For complete albums and songs ("If the Past Seams So Bright", "Folk Art", "Plainville", "Torchsongs") visit itunes, jeremyudden.com, sunnysiderecords.com, freshsoundrecords.com, bandcamp, etc... 

Hailed by Downbeat magazine for his “adroit lyricism and gift for complex, imaginative composition,” composer, synthesist, and trumpeter Taylor Haskins is an artist who has distinguished himself as a leader of groundbreaking bands, a venturesome composer and producer in the field of media and music software, and a top-level sideman. He has played a vital role in Nels Cline’s Lovers orchestra, the Grammy-winning Dave Holland Big Band (Overtime), Guillermo Klein’s Los Guachos, the Richard Bona Group and many other world-class ensembles.

Haskins’ most recent work includes the jazz-electronica hybrid Gnosis and the disarmingly melodic The Point, by a new quintet called Green Empire featuring Haskins exclusively on the rare Steiner-Crumar analog EVI (electronic valve instrument). His five previous releases, dating back to 2003, are Fuzzy Logic, Recombination, American Dream, Metaview, and Wake Up Call.

For over 20 years, Haskins has composed and produced music for media of all types. For six years he worked full-time as an in-house composer for the cutting-edge electronic music production house tomandandy, creating music and sound design for numerous major commercial campaigns, films, video games, and art installations. While at tomandandy Haskins also helped develop and field-test proprietary (and ultimately patented) music generation software that employs artificial intelligence-based algorithms.

Originally from the woods of New Hampshire, Haskins completed his Masters degree at the Manhattan School of Music in 1996 and thrived as an active participant in the demanding New York jazz scene for over 20 years. He now resides in the Champlain Valley region of New York’s Adirondack mountains.

Haskins’ most recent work includes the jazz-electronica hybrid Gnosis and the disarmingly melodic The Point, by a new quintet called Green Empire featuring Haskins exclusively on the rare Steiner-Crumar analog EVI (electronic valve instrument). His five previous releases, dating back to 2003, are Fuzzy Logic, Recombination, American Dream, Metaview, and Wake Up Call.

For six years, Haskins worked full-time as an in-house composer for the cutting-edge electronic music production house tomandandy, creating music and sound design for numerous major commercial campaigns, films and art installations. While at tomandandy Haskins also helped develop and field-test proprietary (and ultimately patented) music generation software that employs artificial intelligence-based algorithms.

Originally from the woods of New Hampshire, Haskins completed his Masters degree at the Manhattan School of Music in 1996 and thrived as a member of the demanding New York jazz scene for over 20 years. He now resides in the Champlain Valley region of New York’s Adirondack mountains.

NYC Drummer/Composer

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