Today, International Anthem releases jaimie branch’s third and final album with Fly or Die entitled Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)), alongside focus track Bolinko Bass.

The record is the late trumpeter and composer’s third and final album with her quartet. The record arrives just days after the one year anniversary of the iconic trumpeter and composer’s tragic passing last summer.

At the age of 39, jaimie “breezy” branch had already established herself at the vanguard of modern jazz composition, blurring genre boundaries and performing with an inimitable power. branch was also a tireless collaborator, who worked with samba icon Elza Soares; noise icons Wolf Eyes; indie stars like TV on the Radio, Yo La Tengo and Spoon; British dub producer The Bug; the First Nations rock collective Medicine Singers; and various International Anthem labelmates, including Jeff Parker, Ben LaMar Gay, and Alabaster DePlume, among so many others.

She even made a posthumous appearance on Talib Kweli & Madlib’s album Liberation 2, released earlier this spring, playing trumpet in a stunning co-composed duet with Madlib on keys.

Her Fly or Die bandmates are St. Louis, bassist Jason Ajemian, and drummer Chad Taylor.

branch was born on Long Island, moving to the Chicago suburbs when she was nine. The young musician was something of a prodigy, playing, reading and writing music from an early age, and picking up the trumpet from her decade-older half-brother, who also studied the instrument professionally.

She played her first improvised solo in front of her middle-school jazz-band at the age of 11, transcribed her first Miles Davis solo (On Green Dolphin Street) when she was 12, and at 14 was the youngest member of the ska-punk band in her high-school, where she also played in the classical and jazz orchestras.

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In April of 2022, jaimie branch and her Fly or Die bandmates reconvened at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, where she had received an arts residency. An accomplished painter, jaimie had been making the artwork for all of her records — and at BEMIS she and the group built a stage installation while recording their third album together.

In the liner notes for Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((world war)), tributes are paid by branch’s Fly or Die bandmates Lester St. Louis, Jason Ajemian, and Chad Taylor:

“jaimie never had small ideas. She always thought big. The minute you told her she couldn’t do something, or that something would be too difficult to accomplish, the more determined and focused she became. And this album is big. Far bigger and more demanding – for us, and for you – than any other Fly or Die record.

“For this, jaimie wanted to play with longer forms, more modulations, more noise, more singing, and as always, grooves and melodies. She was a dynamic melodicist. jaimie wanted this album to be lush, grand and full of life, just as she was. Every time we take a listen, we feel the deep imprint of her all over the music, and we see all of us making it together.”