Tribute: Jazz trumpeter and composer Jaimie Branch died aged only 39 but her music touched many. Photo: Ben Semisch
Listening to singer-trumpeter Jaimie Branch’s just-released tour de force, Fly or Die, Fly or Die, Fly or Die (World War), I had a delightful flashback to a “music career” decades ago that fortunately went nowhere — mine.
My mother’s musical genes clearly skipped a generation. My older brother could at least play a vaguely recognisable version of Locomotive Breath on his acoustic guitar.
I had far less talent.
Despite my early passion for music, my dear mother’s patience to teach me to play the piano wasn’t enough. It was the early 1970s and 10-year-old me wanted to do Elton John-style handstands on the piano — he really did — and not play Chopsticks.
I decided that I would switch to her accordion. For some reason I used the cooling room next to the dairy on the farm to “play”. My father must have been relieved when I soon gave up.
That racket could not have been good for the cows’ milk yield.
I switched to being a record collector and bought as many LPs as a farm boy could afford with pocket money earned from milking those chilled cows.
My passion for music remained —in fact, it became an obsession, and it still is. Nowadays I have access to stacks of music, almost too much in these hyper-capitalist days. But occasionally a masterpiece is released.
This one, Fly or Die, Fly or Die, Fly or Die (World War), has special significance and poignance. It was released by the adventurous Chicago-based record label International Anthem just over a year after the very talented Branch suddenly died on 22 August 2022 at the age of just 39.
If you don’t know her music, this is how her label introduces her: “First and foremost, jaimie ‘breezy’ branch (intentionally punctuated as all-lower-case) was a trumpet player. Whether it was the blast of her horn’s long steady full-bodied tone, or the expressiveness she’d add with plunger mutes and harmonising looped effects, branch played the trumpet like she was born to, reasserting her love for and fascination with the instrument each and every time she brought it to her lips. If you need one reason to know why jaimie branch was a special musical force, start there.”
This is her third album with her experimental trumpet-bass-cello-drums quartet, also known as Fly or Die, which they recorded in Nebraska over five days in April 2022.
Lower the needle in the record’s groove, close your eyes and let Branch’s dramatic church organ-like keyboard sweep you away. Then Chad Taylor’s timpani rumble like far-off thunder transporting you to an imaginary plush theatre. Slowly the heavy red velvet curtains are pulled back to put the spotlight on Branch’s ascending trumpet, driven by Jason Ajemian’s bass, accompanied on by Lester St Louis’ swooping cello. The scene is set for a perfect 46-minute record: serious, intelligent, exuberant and still joyful.
Is it jazz? Yes, free and electric, but with punk, pop, baroque, modern classical, prog-rock, chamber funk, Ethiojazz and Latin styles woven in. The one track, Baby Louie, even reminds me our avant-jazz Blue Notes blowing their exile blues away.
The melodic groove is always there.
It is deeply political too, a soundtrack to fight the fascists.
On Burning Grey Branch sings: “Believe me, the future lives inside us, don’t forget to fight, don’t forget the fight, don’t forget, don’t forget!”
She chants on Take Over the World: “We’re gonna gonna gonna take over the world, and give it give it back back back back to the la-la-la-land.”
The fun is there too. The Mountain is a rootsy cover of the Meat Puppets’ cow-punk song, done with a wink and a smile.
And there is love.
Her fellow band members wrote in the sleeve notes: “This record is both filled to the brim with jaimie but also us three, and the community of people she loved and was inspired by —and whom loved and were inspired by her.”
When I heard of her death, it felt as if I had lost a sister, even though I never met her. It was the case for her fans around the world — she had that kind of presence.
Fly or Die, Fly or Die, Fly or Die (World War) can be an obituary because of its timing and that is her last ever music, but it is a celebration.
That is why this record reminded me of my “career”. If I had any talent, this is the kind of music I would have loved to make.