Anif goes Bim Bam Jazz

Lex O’brien (Drums)

Drummer/vibraphonist Lex O’Brien is a Washington DC native. He began playing professionally at age seventeen and soon learned that music without boundaries is more fun. He has since played nearly every style of music: from country to free jazz to symphony to circus band.. He studied percussion at Ithaca College with William Youhass, and was solo timpanist for the college orchestra’s acclaimed performance at New York’s Lincoln Center. Following his academic years, Lex was a founding member of the jazz fusion group Xyphus, and appeared on stages in upstate New York with jazz notables such as George Benson, Michael Urbaniak, Joe Farrell, and Victor Lewis, and even rock legends Fleetwood Mac. Later came a long period when Lex played rock and roll primarily, first as an original member of The Magnetics, a Washington DC based club band that was familiar to audiences from Cape Cod to Key West, then as an original member of another well known DC based indie-pop group, Brûlée. But there was a significant interlude. In 1999, marking a return to his first loves of jazz and composition, Lex formed COMPLEXBLUE. This band, which included Chris Bacas and Harry Appelman, released a CD called, „Knot the Thought that Counts.“ Earning glowing reviews in The Washington Post and elsewhere, it still stands out as a remarkable recording. (Available for streaming on Spotify!) Fast forward to 2016: Lex has relocated to Salzburg, Austria, where he’s found creative refreshment in the city’s arts-rich environment. During the lockdown of 2020, motivated by the isolation and desperate uncertainties of the pandemic, Lex was inspired to restart COMPLEXBLUE with a clan of simpatico, European musicians. This new group, though with a different sound than the original one, still carries on the band’s original purpose — creative exploration without boundaries!