jaimie branch / jaimie branch: FLY or DIE
Jazz Road Creative Residencies Grant Recipient
Recipient Information
Location
New York, New York
Year of Award
2021
Grant or Fellowship
Jazz Road Creative Residencies Grant
Grant Amount
$40,000
About the Project
FLY OR DIE's jaimie branch (with cellist, Lester St. Louis; bassist, Jason Ajemian; and drummer, Chad Taylor) will develop new music and visual work that is directly related to Red Hook (Brooklyn). Outdoor rehearsals, open studios and concerts will occur with partners, 360 Record Shop, Erin Basie Pier and the Red Hook Art Project and Houses (NYC Housing Authority). Funds allow a highly professional recording process to follow which also enables branch's full ownership of the master recordings.
Residency Location
New York, NY
About the Artist
jaimie branch is a Colombian-American Brooklyn-based musician and artist working in the areas of improvisation and composition. Through her musical practice, her main interests lie in extending and expanding the technical limitations of the trumpet and the musical language of free jazz and improvised music. branch’s interest in music was sparked at a very young age, she started playing piano at age 3, began composing at the tender age of 6, and began studying trumpet at age 9. From 2001-2005 jaimie attended the New England Conservatory of Music, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Music in jazz trumpet performance. Her primary teachers were Steve Lacy, Joe Morris, John McNeil, and Charlie Schlueter all of whom influenced her initial artistic identity as a composer and performer. In 2005 jaimie was invited into the inaugural class of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute - an intensive that ran concurrent with the Vancouver International Jazz Festival where she studied with Nicole Mitchell, Evan Parker, and George Lewis. After her studies were completed in Boston, she returned to Chicago to live and play. jaimie became an extremely active member of the Chicago creative music scene as a performer, curator, presenter, and recording engineer. She was a co-curator of “Protest Heaven” an improvised music series at Heaven Gallery for 6 years, a co-founder and curator of the Ratchet Series at the Skylark, and the sole founder of an afternoon series at the DANK Haus. jaimie moved to Baltimore in 2012 and Brooklyn in 2015, She has collaborated with musicians William Parker, Matana Roberts, Moor Mother, Chad Taylor, Tomeka Reid, and many more. Her own projects FLY or DIE and Anteloper have been met with critical acclaim by The New York Times, The Wire, NPR, Sterogum, The Guardian, and more. jaimie has performed all over North America, Europe, and The United Kingdom at events and venues such as The Chicago Jazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, Vancouver International Jazz Festival, BOZAR Center for Fine Arts, The Kennedy Center, Bimhuis, Lollapalooza, and more. In 2020, branch became a Jerome Foundation at Roulette resident and won the inaugural 2021 Deutscher Jazzpreis for Wind Instruments International Award. branch’s artistic output has continuously dealt with themes of social justice, gender and racial equality, and personal storytelling.