Bio
John O'Brien is a trumpeter and composer who has led many bands. His first musical hero was the swing trumpeter Jonah Jones, followed by Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis, whose Porgy and Bess shaped his ear early on. His work lives where jazz meets Western orchestral music.
His biggest show was at the New Music America festival, and he won a composer's grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has also been exploring MIDI music. He cares more about creating music than mastering a style, and draws on direct experience and nature rather than on other people's music. In an interview he said he would like to be remembered as someone who could see "all the leaves on the trees as being a form of notation."
On the Anthrophonic album kcob / eudaemonic, he plays trumpet.