feature photo: Courtesy of Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts
In 2017, trumpet extraordinaire and rules-breaking musician jaimie branch took the whole music world by storm with her astonishing first album Fly Or Die. Five years later, it came to a tragic end when she suddenly died in her Red Hook, Brooklyn apartment at just 39 years old.
branch had recorded numerous collaborations but left behind only a trio of solo records (plus a live record). About one year after her August 2022 death, the third, posthumous album was released, finished just weeks before her passing. Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) (International Anthem Recording Co.) presents an artist still reaching for higher planes, suggesting her best was still yet to come. At this point, branch had completely transcended the jazz realm from which she came, crafting music pulled together from disparate sources that is somehow easy to embrace even while it remains edgy, confrontational and daring.
Here, she leads a base quartet starting with her on trumpet, voice and a variety of other instruments. Carrying over from 2019’s Fly with Fly or Die II: bird dogs of paradise are Lester St. Louis (cello, flute, etc.), Jason Ajemian (basses) and Chad Taylor (drums, percussion), supplemented by other performers here and there.
As before, there are no standard conventions in how branch made her music, but she arguably found a few more conventions to break. The regal, churchy organ, timpani and the trumpet shot out of the dark during “Aurora Rising” herald the catchy riff of “Borealis Dancing” set to different Latin rhythms. It’s Emerson Lake & Palmer in one sense but branch’s trumpet sits there on the other end evoking the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
“Burning Grey” is a relentless conga with a call to action (“Don’t forget to fight, don’t forget to fight”), as she delivers a hazy tour-de-force that makes vigorous spirit its own genre. As the song barrels toward the end, branch unleashes an incendiary but precise trumpet barrage. “Take Over The World” has that same, swaggering energy, going even faster as branch’s vocals goes into banshee mode.
“Baba Louie” suggests ska with an insistent joy, even when it shifts down into psychedelic lounge jazz. The Afro-Caribbean festivities continues with “Bolinko Bass,” where branch is so relaxed in delivering commanding lines on trumpet.
The Meat Puppets’ country-punk nugget “Comin’ Down” gets renamed “The Mountain” and recast as a country-ballad with two-part harmony with the only instrumentation coming from Ajemian’s bass and a short and swinging muted horn feature out of branch. It’s hard not to hear the lyrics “Coming down from the mountain/I have seen the high and mighty/I will go again someday/But for now I’m coming down” and think of MLK’s “I’ve Been To The Mountaintop” speech using a similar metaphor to seemingly predict his own premature death.
Maybe jaimie branch just wasn’t meant for our world, but her final missive on Earth Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) makes clear that we’re all worse off because she’s no longer in it.
Get Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) from Bandcamp.
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