CD Review: Jaimie Branch - Fly or Die

Jaimie Branch
Fly or Die
(International Anthem) www.intlanthem.com

If there's one album to buy this year on impulse, or based on a review, this is the one.

Trumpeter Jaimie Branch has played with William Parker and Matana Roberts as well as TV on the Radio and Spoon. Fly or Die is her first release as a leader and she wastes no time ingratiating herself to listeners. After some brief, low blasts from Branch's horn, Tomeka Reid (cello) and Jason Ajemian (bass) set up the vamp of "Theme 001," grooving and playing off each other and Chad Taylor (drums). Branch enters with a bright tone that quickly engages, playing a theme and embellishing with some flutters and bent notes.

The tune could have gone on for another five minutes, with the strings dancing off each other and Taylor straddling a groove and incisive fills. But after less than four minutes, the tempo slips away and they segue into  "Meanwhile," an interlude of string scrapes and free drums. "Theme 002" builds out of this (don't look at the disc as it's playing and it all feels like one multi-themed piece), like a hopped up reggae groove, with Branch playing long high tones and pensive mid-range lines as well. In some ways, she recalls Wadada Leo Smith's ability to put across a great deal within a batch of crisply executed notes.

In "Leaves of Glass" Branch is joined by cornetists Josh Berman and  Ben Lamar Gay, who echo and embellish her melody, which build in dynamics and reverb like some ghost of Gil Evans got captured by the tape in the studio. The echo remains for "The Storm" a spacey tone poem with cello glissandos and tympani.

The music keeps moving forward throughout, climaxing with the stop-start "Theme Nothing," where Taylor breaks into an explosive solo over the song's one-chord groove. "...Back at the Ranch" closes the album with a non-sequitur: a solo acoustic guitar rendering, not quite classical, not quite spaghetti western, but with echoes of both.

Branch has a lot going for her: the strong tone of a classical trumpeter, the imagination that can be expected from a Chicago player, writing skills that bring life to simple grooves and great choices for band members. Hopefully more people are listening to this album right now and feeling the same way.