In the middle of “burning grey”, from her tumultuous third and final album Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)), jaimie branch issues an exhortation that could serve as her artistic mission statement: “Don't forget to fight.” Whether leading the quartet Fly or Die or working as a production partner on stages and cities, the trumpeter, composer and singer, who died of undisclosed causes at 39 last year, made music from a place of gleeful defiance.
Her background was in jazz, but she cared little for the supposed distinctions of the genre, drawing on the syncopated rhythms of Latin and Caribbean music, the melodic clarity of folk song, the swirling textures of psychedelia, the abstraction of free improvisation, the horseback riding. -hop, the boxing of punk rock. Her commitment to every note didn't just make these connections between various rules seem real. it made the idea of their separation seem absurd. There are inherent dangers in such agnosticism about style. For the enthusiastic hobbyist, it can betray a lack of focus. for the dispassionate practitioner, a belief that idioms are exercises to be mastered verbatim. For Branch, whose sheer technical prowess never got in the way of her raw passion – or vice versa – it's just testament to the belief that all these seemingly divergent branches grow from the same tree. And at its root, as she and her colleagues prove ((World War))it is the will to fight, dance and survive.
branch was almost completed ((World War)) when he died. Her family members and partners consulted her notes to finalize details such as mixes and track titles before its release. Given these circumstances, it's tempting to hear the album as a requiem or a grand finale to her short but impressive career. Its structure, opening with a heroic fanfare of timpani and electric organ and closing with a funereal lord, does not initially discourage this interpretation. But on further listening, it sounds less like an ending than a flowery hard cut. Although listeners of Fly or Die's previous industry recordings will have no problem recognizing ((World War)) as the work of the same bandleader, they may also be struck by the number of new paths the album opens up in her music.
Ideas that appeared on the margins of previous files now take center stage. The calypsotic major-key melodies that sounded like slang on 'mere silver surfer', from Fly or Die IIreach almost symphonic proportions in “baba louie”, ((World War))it's nine minutes central. The rough and powerful branch vocals, absent from the first album Fly or Die and tentatively present on the second, are the driving force behind the third. She's decidedly not a jazz singer, at least not in any traditional sense: She shouts, pleads, screams wordlessly, even mocks a kind of country song. The lyrics mostly favor pragmatism over poetry, simple calls for resistance to the status quo. Like the previous Fly or Die albums, ((World War)) it often feels like a rowdy party. As its master of ceremonies, the annex never lets us forget that there is not just escapism in getting along and relaxing, but also in solidarity.
