She was born in Long Island, raised in Chicago and was based in Brooklyn in later life, she booked venues, worked in record shops, organised jams and cross-pollinated with all sorts of artists, from our own Alabaster DePlume, to TV on the Radio, Talib Kweli and Madlib. Regrettably, Branch was no household name. Photograph: Ben Semisch/Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Branch is also credited as playing a Happy Apple, a Fisher-Price toy from the 1970s.įrom left: Lester St Louis, Jason Ajemian and Jaimie Branch. Elsewhere, the menu is global: snaking, Ethiopian horn tones trade off with tracks that hint at Branch’s Colombian roots on her mother’s side. The country-punk original ( Comin’ Down, released 1994) is transmuted into rootsy Americana by Ajemian’s voice and bowed bass Branch is on trumpet and backing vocals. So it’s not really that much of a surprise to find that, in the middle of an ensemble album where marimbas trade off with mbiras (a Zimbabwean thumb piano), there’s an unexpected cover of a Meat Puppets song, The Mountain. Often taking the instrument from her lips, she shouts and exhorts, whoops and sings.Ī DIY operator at heart, she did all her own artwork. Branch plays her trumpet as though leading her band into battle – or, Pied Piper-like, to the afterparty in New Orleans. Fly Or Die III (for brevity) rocks, rolls and generally throws itself around. But her Bandcamp bio memorably identifies her as “a psychedelic warrior for peace, making music into the void”.Ī punk disposition suffuses many of these nine tracks, immolating assumptions around the j-word. On this record, she is often in league with trombone, flute and clarinet. Branch had a deep belief that music changes the world on a cellular level and her vivid protest rave-jazz invites you inīranch was first and foremost a jazz trumpeter, trained at the New England Conservatory and boasting the nickname “Breezy”.
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