jaimie branch
Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war))
INTERNATIONAL ANTHEM
Renowned for collaborations with nu-jazz masters Jeff Parker and Ken Vandermark, a love of all things Chicago avant-garde, and six years’ worth of leader albums with her dynamics-rich Fly or Die ensemble, Brooklyn-based trumpeter and composer jaimie branch was a genuine force. When she passed away last summer at age 39, her ravishing, buoyant, Don Cherry–like improvisations and often brutally rhythmic compositions were just beginning to find definition as a full-blown aesthetic—a sound definably branch-ian.
Quite pointedly and too sorrowfully, her third solo studio album—the posthumously released rabid, rapturous Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war))—is easily her best, one that uneasily (yet seamlessly) blends her usual free improvs with a psych-punkish vibe, rhythms contained within the whole of the Latin continuum, and an opulent sense of string-driven harmonics rolled out in tandem with Fly or Die cellist Lester St. Louis.
Unmoored, unmannerly chamber jazz that would make John Zorn or Lester Bowie proud, branch, bassist Jason Ajemian, and drummer Chad Taylor capitalize on the new album’s tumultuous “world war” theme (her albums were increasingly political) with the pummeling rock-out “Burning Grey” and its free-verse vocals from the trumpeter, along with a heavily bass-bowed cover of Meat Puppets’ “Comin’ Down” (“The Mountain”). While that latter track embraces old-school country balladry with a refined sense of tradition and an ear toward hummable melody, branch, her rhythmic team, and St. Louis’ cinematic cello whine turns “Borealis Dancing” into a mesmerizing drama—an unstill Kiss of the Spider Woman excursion worthy of a grand stage.
While it seems altogether too simple to say that hers was a life that ended too soon, jaimie branch’s Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)) makes that point altogether too clearly.
