Jason Branscum

Music

Records under my own name, bands I’ve led, and some of what I’ve played on for other people. The session list is a sampling, not an accounting.

Beyond the Walls of the World

This is an album of alien fairy tales. It was recorded neither for Martians nor children, but for those held captive by the darkest enchantments of modernity; namely you and me.

Ninety minutes across two discs, written through 2020 and released on 28 May 2021, taking its starting point from Tolkien’s essay On Fairy Stories. Nine instrumental tales, divided by eight interludes built as strict canons in the baroque sense and played in bebop language. The string parts came afterwards, written to answer improvisation already on tape.

A limited run ships in a wood-burnt casing I nailed together by hand.

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Personnel
Quartet
Jason Branscum, trombone · Brandon Coleman, guitar · Aaron Jacobs, bass guitar · Tom Buckley, drums
“When the Sky Is Big”
Jason Branscum, trombone · Marc Fields, trombone · Justin Dawson, acoustic bass · Dan Dorff, drums
Tree interludes
Jason Branscum, trombone · Josh Kline, saxophone · Justin Dawson, acoustic bass · Tom Buckley and Dan Dorff, drums
Strings
Kanako Shimasaki and Mariko Shimasaki, violin · Martin Hintz, viola (6, 9) · Shelby Thompson, viola (4, 11, 13, 16) · Phillip Goist, cello
All compositions by Jason Branscum. Soundscapes conceived, performed and produced by Jason Branscum and Brandon Coleman. String arrangements by Brandon Coleman. Recorded, mixed and mastered by Brandon Coleman at the Golden Mean, Cincinnati. Artwork by Fernando Utreras.

A Different Kind Of Freedom

Six pieces for quartet, released on 20 March 2020, the week the venues closed.

It never got its launch. The download comes with the score PDFs, so you can read it as well as hear it. “Sympathy” is Brandon Coleman’s tune.

This record really shines and reveals his singular voice on the instrument.
Lisa Bella Donna, composer and modular synthesist
Great interplay between the musicians, some killing solos, and thoughtful tunes.
Andrew Hartman, jazz guitarist, New York

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Records under my own name

What’s up on Bandcamp. Not the whole story. A good deal of what I’ve played on never got a digital release at all.

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metalbaby

The band I led in Columbus. Four releases, all my compositions.

Electronics, pop and jazz pulling against each other. Me on trombone, Fran Litterski and Happy Chichester on vocals, Aaron Quinn on guitar, Colin Martin on saxophone, Lisa Bella Donna on Moog. I mixed it, Storm9000 mastered it, Elisa Nicolas caught some of it at the Meadowlark.

  • Outerlooped
    March 2020. Single.
  • Rivets
    May 2014. Twenty-five tracks.
  • metalbaby 2
    April 2013. Five tracks. Artwork by Keven Havens.
  • metalbaby
    November 2010. Vocals by Happy Chichester, saxophone by Colin Martin. Artwork by Lisa Ragland.

Selected session work

Trombone, trumpet, tuba, E-flat horn and flute on other people’s records, 2008 onward.

  • Matthew McAllister, Tough Friend
    April 2026. Trombone and flute in the octet, with Josh Kline, Ritwik Banerji and Phil Hilger on saxophones and flutes, Eric Lechliter on trumpet, EWI and flute, Dan Karlsberg on piano, keyboards and glockenspiel, Justin Dawson on upright bass, and Matt McAllister on drums and percussion. All eight members double on flute. Jason takes the feature on the track cued in the player below. Compositions by McAllister. “Lost On The Byways Of Adolescence” brings in Maxine, the virtual improvisor Ritwik Banerji built. Recorded at Marble Garden Studios, Cincinnati, engineered by Isaac Karns, mastered by Jacques Wait.
  • Connor Robert McMonagle, “Internet Friends”
    April 2025, Scottdog Records. Trombone alongside Juan Dhas, Eric Wurzelbacher, Eric Lechliter, Devon Leigh, Matt Wiles and Brandon Scott Coleman.
  • The Cincinnati Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, We Are The CCJO
    November 2022. Trombone III in the eighteen-piece orchestra, next to Zachary Granger, Marc Fields and Joshua Omaits. Conducted by Eric Lechliter with Mandy Gaines on vocals. Recorded by Kim Pensyl at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
  • Lisa Bella Donna, Endless Roads
    January 2019. Trombone, trumpet, tuba and E-flat horn, alongside Daniel Kelly. Recorded at Backroads Recording, CV Electronic Music Studio and Appalachian Recording.
  • Lisa Bella Donna, Next Time Around
    May 2018. Trombone, trumpet, tuba and E-flat horn.
  • Michael Mavridoglou, “Legend of Prisoner’s Lake”
    May 2020. Trombone, with Ben Walkenhauer on clarinet and Ari Mavridoglou on drums. A narrative ballad about the 1916 quarry flood at Devou, cut at home in the first weeks of lockdown. Music by Mavridoglou, words by A.R. Zembrodt, Jr.
  • Enrique Infante, Canciones Ajenas
    May 2012. Trombone on the Peruvian songwriter’s second album, made while he was based in Columbus. The title means “Other People’s Songs”. The record moves between Latin rock, acoustic ballads and the Andean music Infante grew up with. Félix Contreras of NPR’s Alt Latino singled it out.
  • Donald “Thump Daddy” Payne, Check Again, A Player Just Step In
    Trombone for the Columbus funk bassist. Payne came up with The Crowd Pleasers, toured with Walter “Junie” Morrison of the Ohio Players, and recorded at Bootsy Collins’s Cincinnati studio, cutting tracks there for Fred Wesley.
  • Playhouse, Billy’s Playhouse
    2008. Trombone.
  • Mary Adam 12, 2012
    2012. Trombone on “Slideshow” and “Crush”. The Columbus band led by Elisa Nicolas, who also recorded it. Michelle Ishida on vocals and keyboards, Tim Perdue on trumpet, Fred Gablick on saxophone, Jeff Plavcan on bass, Drew Layman on drums.

A sampling. There are more on Discogs, and a fair amount never got a digital release at all.