Jaimie Branch is our MCF 2019 Artist-in-Residence, a weeklong residency during Mission Creek Festival where artists are invited to spend five days recording new creative work at Iowa City’s Flat Black Studios.

Jaimie Branch is a Brooklyn-based trumpeter working in the areas of improvisation and composition. In her practice, Branch is particularly interested in extending and expanding the technical limitations of the trumpet and the musical language of free jazz and improvised music. Before moving to Red Hook, Brooklyn in 2015, Branch was an active member in the Chicago and Baltimore creative music scenes as a performer, presenter, and recording engineer.

In May 2017, Branch made her debut recording as a leader entitled Fly or Die (IARC 011), which has been met with critical acclaim by the New York Times, The Wire, NPR, Jazz Times, The Observer and more. According to the Times, “Ms. Branch uses extended technique and blustery abstraction to a dizzying effect….Sometimes charging forth, sometimes rerouting, the debut album from Ms. Branch is always on the move.”

For Witching Hour, Branch has assembled a band of some of her long time collaborators, Toby Summerfield – guitar, who currently shreds with Colin Stetson’s Ex-Eye, Anton Hatwich – bass, formerly of Ryley Walker’s band, and Dan Bitney – drums, most famously (and currently) a drummer in Chicago’s favorite post-rock band, Tortoise.