Description

Brian Felix  grew up in New Jersey and went to Rutgers where he studied piano with Kenny Barron. He played in several bands in the New Brunswick area and graduated with a BA in music and a minor in history in 1999. In June of that year he moved to Oregon where he formed OM Trio with fellow NJ natives Ilya Stemkovsky and Daniel Fusco. In 2011, Felix accepted a position in the Department of Music at UNC Asheville, where he teaches classes on jazz theory and improvisation, jazz history, keyboard skills, music business, the Beatles and the Grateful Dead. He performs regularly throughout the region with his Brian Felix Organ Trio and other groups. His scholarly work has been published in Jazz Perspectives, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, and Grateful Dead Studies, and he maintains an active performance schedule in Asheville, where he lives with his wife Bridget and his sons, Sean and Gavin. His album Level Up is due out in February 2025.

OM Trio was a jazz/rock band that toured extensively in the US from 1999-2004 and released five albums. Their style of music was dubbed “Elevator Music for Headbangers” and “Instru-metal Jazz/Rock,” reflecting their penchant for the heavier side of electric improvised music. The band’s primary touring years were 2001-2004, when they shared the stage with artists such as Tower of Power, John Scofield, Umphrey’s McGee, Joshua Redman, Wayne Krantz, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe and others. The band was started by Brian Felix (keyboards), Ilya Stemkovsky (drums), and Daniel Fusco (bass), all New Jersey natives that relocated to Southern Oregon. The band released three albums with Fusco: The Clarified Butter, Jazz Trio and Meat Curtain. In 2000 the group relocated to the SF Bay Area and fellow New Jerseyan Pete Novembre replaced Fusco on bass. During their tenure, the trio performed regularly in all the major US markets and at several high profile festivals. The group released two albums with Novembre: Live (2001) and the critically acclaimed Globalpositioningrecord (2003). The group disbanded in December of 2004. They reunited for shows with Umprhey’s McGee at the Fillmore Auditorium in SF in February of 2008. In addition to the five albums, the group left behind a trove of live recordings including the two DVD set Pummeling Angle (2016), which features eight hours of live and behind-the-scenes footage.