Jaimie Branch

Jaimie Branch (1983-2022) was an American trumpeter, composer and bandleader, born in Huntington, New York. She worked in the Chicago improvised music scene, then in Baltimore and Brooklyn, where she died aged 39. She is best known for Fly or Die, the group she led on the Chicago label International Anthem, whose 2017 debut album NPR Music placed among its 50 best albums of the year. Branch started the trumpet at nine and studied at the New England Conservatory. In Chicago she played, organized concerts and worked as a sound engineer, and in Baltimore she founded the label Pionic Records.