Miles Okazaki, the son of a painter and photographer, grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the small waterfront city of Port Townsend. After a childhood of immersion in visual arts, he picked up the guitar the age of six, and remains a primarily self-taught musician. As a teenager, he was recognized with awards for exceptional achievements in Music, Visual Arts, and Mathematics.

Okazaki's formal studies were at Harvard University, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Juilliard School. He has pursued a variety of subjects, including Visual Arts, Literature and Language, Mathematics, and Music. His main teachers on guitar are Michael Townsend (Port Townsend) and Rodney Jones (New York). Okazaki has toured and recorded with a wide range of artists, including Stanley Turrentine, Lenny Pickett, Samir Chatterjee, Jen Shyu, Dan Weiss, David Binney, and others. His technique on guitar is the result of several areas of study; improvisation from the jazz tradition, classical and brazilian fingerstyle techniques, and the transcription of music to the guitar from other instruments. His compositional approach involves the investigation of fundamental ideas about melody, form, and rhythm in diverse musical traditions; he has studied South Indian music under percussionist Ganesh Kumar for many years, absorbed the history of the American Popular Songbook as a long-time member of the Jane Monheit group, and continues to practice visual art and other disciplines that provide material for musical forms.

Recently, Okazaki has focused primarily on composing and studying improvisational concepts. In 2006, he recorded his debut album, Mirror, funding this project with his winnings as second-place finalist in the Thelonious Monk Jazz Competition. This album, called "a work of sustained collectivity as well as deep intricacy" in a New York Times "critics pick," won a "New Works" grant from Chamber Music America to produce a second volume of compositions. This project became Generations, on Sunnyside Records. Currently Okazaki plays guitar for many groups, including Steve Coleman and Five Elements, and is working on several new commissions, including a new ensemble work for the French-American Jazz Exchange program, music for classical guitar, and a new suite of compositions for his third album.