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 a