June 17, 1983 - August 22, 2022

At the root of all improvised music is the ability to communicate through sound as one communicates in daily social life. Musicians who may have never met in person before the show are able to walk onstage and collaborate for hours as if they had been up the past three nights practicing like their life depended on it. This is only possible through one's ability to communicate, and more importantly to listen to their partner as one would in deep conversation with a new friend.

And it’s because of this need for strong communication skills as the foundation of an improvisational music practice that the expansive discography of Jaimie Branch is a glimpse into the artist both as musician and simply the friendly and engaging person she was. I only had the pleasure of meeting Jaimie twice while I was still living in Brooklyn: once as her sound engineer, another as a fellow improviser on a bill of experimental music. On both occasions she performed as a collaborator in trio settings, accompanying herself only with a pocket cornet. Each time, we managed to chill, smoke, and share a few laughs over drinks in the backyard. I doubt she’d remember those occasions, but it felt as if I already knew this person deeply even though it was our first time meeting.

I can’t fully put into words the sheer power Jaimie got out of that little horn sent through a proper soundsystem. It was as if we, as audience members, were inside the bell of the cornet as its vibrations wrapped around us in stereo. Through deafening dissonance and glacial melodies, the work of Jaimie Branch is analogous to just how approachable she was as a person. Her nearly endless list of collaborators is a testament to that, and although it would be a monumental task to talk about each release of her discography, I would like to recommend three records of Jaimie Branch as a starting-off point for the uninitiated.

Fly or Die I:  An essential listen into the Jaimie Branch soundscape. From hard bop inspired post-tonal syncopated riffs to hilariously intimate guttural brass noise, the Fly or Die ensemble, consisting of Branch on trumpet, Tomeka Reid on cello, Jason Ajeman on bass, and Chad Taylor on drums, shows us just how expansive improvisational music vocabulary can be under the right direction.

Anteloper - Pink Dolphins: The Anteloper project is most notably known as a duo between Branch and Brooklyn improvisational staple drummer Jason Nazary, both of whom also often perform with synthesized self-accompaniment alongside their traditional acoustic instruments. I rarely would ascribe words such as “psychedelic trance” to groove-based improvisational music such as this record, but that’s exactly what is experienced when you hear these two jam together. The combination of repetitive live breakbeat variations over electronically enhanced brass drone textures and various auxiliary instrumentation creates an entire, densely packed universe within a run-time of under forty minutes.

Fly or Die II: bird dogs of paradise: The second and final full-length LP of the Fly or Die ensemble, this collection of nine compositions replaces the fuller arrangements of the first record with a more spacious and politically charged patient minimalism. The moments of near silence on this record punch with as much intensity as when the entire ensemble roars in cacophonous howling. The moments of playful blues and folk consonance counter the fully free improvisational moments of fully spontaneous nowness. This is a record that makes a mountain of the expression “less is more.”

Thank you Jaimie.