An educator at the Cathedral School for Boys, bassist and composer Markus Hunt brought together some of the San Francisco Bay Area’s finest musicians in 2013 to record eight original compositions on The Whisper of Flowers—including a spontaneous improvisation, a bass/drum duet, solo bass, and a three-part suite, through which the group swings, crashes, and grooves through labyrinths of sound, mixing rhythm and color. The quartet creates a rich and textured aural experience, with the influences of Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus coming through in Hunt’s loosely-crafted compositions. The Whisper of Flowers is Hunt’s first recording as a leader. The title of the album was taken from a quote from bassist William Parker: “It is not about jazz, it is about sound as revealed through the mysteries of life. About those who have said yes to the whisper of a flower and the shout of a blue hurricane.”