First and foremost, jaimie “Breezy” branch (intentionally punctuated as all-lower-case) was a trumpet player. Whether it was the blast of her horn’s long steady full-bodied tone, or the expressiveness she’d add with plunger mutes and harmonizing looped effects, branch played the trumpet like she was born to, reasserting her love for and fascination with the instrument each and every time she brought it to her lips. If you need one reason to know why jaimie branch was a special musical force, start there. Yet that was, of course, not the only reason. branch was also an incredibly gifted improviser and bandleader, composer and singer-songwriter, musicker and DIY activist. And it was the thoughtfulness and hell-or-high-water energy that she applied in combining all these missions which defined jaimie branch as an artist, the endeavor she put into both her creative and community work, and the unbendable stand she made at the intersection of the two. Truly powerful shit, if you saw it in the right light.