Fly Or Die Live

About

Trumpeter Jaimie Branch debuted to great acclaim in 2017 with <i>Fly or Die</i> and has succeeded in keeping that inspired group together. Lester St. Louis assumed the cello chair in place of Tomeka Reid for the band’s 2019 sophomore outing, <i>Bird Dogs of Paradise</i>, and he’s heard as well on this bracing live set, recorded in Zurich in January 2020 with the COVID shutdown around the corner. While the first two albums featured guests laying down bits of additional guitar, cornet, percussion, voice, and synth, <i>FLY or DIE LIVE</i> is quartet all the way, with Branch, St. Loui, bassist Jason Ajemian, and drummer Chad Taylor giving their all on repertoire mainly from the <i>Fly or Die</i> studio album. With deep roots in the Chicago avant-garde, Branch has access to a wide range of trumpet sound, from warm, soaring legato melodies to bristly extended techniques and subtly deployed electronic effect. But to a degree, her vision for <i>Fly or Die</i> transcends her instrument: She sing, for instance, on “prayer for amerikkka, Pt. 1 & 2,” coaxing her bandmates to add backup vocals as she addresses the Swiss crowd regarding the state of a world about to get much worse. There’s a lightheartedne, however: “love song,” another vocal number, has a subtitle that can’t be printed here, and Branch succeeds in getting the crowd to sing it with her. (“It’ll make ya feel better, Switzerland!”) .

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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