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Jaimie Branch – Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 46:51 minutes | 558 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © International Anthem

Composer, trumpet player, and singer jaimie branch—who died in August 2022 at her Red Hook, Brooklyn home—saw past musical limits. Consequently, her music isn’t easy to describe. Raised on Long Island and in Chicago, branch was conservatory trained but adverse to musical conventions, and a natural improviser. She was a gifted collaborator and a moving target artistically who had just put the finishing touches on Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) before her death. The third album with her Fly or Die quartet—equally open-minded and talented musicians: Lester St. Louis (cello, voice, flute, marimba, keyboard), Jason Ajemian (double bass, electric bass, voice, marimba), and Chad Taylor (drums, mbira, timpani, bells, marimba)—was recorded in the unlikely locale of the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE, where equipment had to be flown in and instruments had to be borrowed from the Omaha Symphony Orchestra. It was edited and mixed at International Anthem Studios in Chicago. Despite that process, the sonics here are spectacular given branch’s abiding and primal interest and respect for the power of sound. Opening with branch on keyboards and Taylor on timpani, “Aurora Rising” strikes a triumphant tone before branch switches to trumpet and drums enter what becomes a jaunty duo between trumpet and cello. Without pause, that transitions into “Borealis Dancing” which showcases the horn in long high blasts, later achieving one of branch’s signature tones using a plunger mute. “Burning Grey” ups the tempo before she begins to vocalize, chanting more than singing. While eight of these nine tracks are originals, it’s “the mountain,” a cover of the Meat Puppets’ “Comin’ Down,” that speaks most to branch’s open musical mind. St. Louis’s cello oozes with melancholy at the start before he switches to plucking the strings as Ajemian and branch come together in quietly beautiful, bluegrass-tinged harmony: “One thing always seems apparent/ If the climb becomes too much/ I can always turn around.” Unexpected and yet utterly in character, this wonderful interpretation is finished with branch soloing the vocal part on trumpet. The climax “Take Over the World” is an explosion of rhythm and branch’s repeated, almost shouted chanting punctuated by trumpet solos. The sweet, slow coda “World War ((reprise))” closes a forward-looking final statement from a musician whose ascending vision will be missed. – Robert Baird

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