JUDI SILVANO'S GARDEN WINDS, First Flight

What happens when three ultra-adventurous musicians leave the familiar architecture of a conventional jazz ensemble behind and explore the possibilities of voice, flute, and bassoon? On First Flight, veteran vocalist and composer Judi Silvano, flutist Haruna Fukazawa, and bassoonist Claire de Brunner – collectively performing as Judi Silvano’s Garden Winds - discover a musical language all their own, built on spontaneous interplay, unusual tonal combinations, and the unpredictable contours of free improvisation.

This is chamber jazz stripped to its essentials, with no piano, bass, or drums to dictate the harmonic direction or establish a conventional groove. Instead, three distinctive musical personalities listen, respond, and venture into uncharted territory together. The name Garden Winds reflects the setting that inspired the project. Silvano brought her collaborators together in her own garden to create a spontaneous session featuring the three instruments.

The trio’s most striking feature is Silvano’s remarkable use of the human voice as an instrument. Moving between soaring, almost operatic high notes, breathy syllables, nimble scat-like bursts, and surprisingly dark lower tones, she creates melodies that seem to hover between singing and instrumental expression. Fukazawa’s flute answers with darting runs, delicate trills, and piercing upper-register flourishes, while de Brunner’s bassoon supplies a resonant, often mischievous counterpoint, its woody low notes occasionally rising into unexpected flights of their own.

The title track establishes this unusual dynamic, with Silvano’s wordless vocalizations echoed by the bassoon before the flute joins the conversation. Their contrasting registers create an intriguing interplay of airy highs and earthy lows, sometimes converging in graceful melodic passages, sometimes veering into deliberately unpredictable exchanges. On “Gathering” and “Flock of Three,” that dialogue becomes particularly animated, as percussive vocal phrases, fluttering flute figures, and wavering bassoon lines continually reshape the musical landscape. The effect is less a conventional melody accompanied by two instruments than a three-way conversation in which every participant has an equal voice.

Silvano’s background in dance helps illuminate the music’s physical character. Her vocal phrases twist, leap, and retreat with the freedom of a dancer responding to movement in real time. “Stravinsky” brings a puckish, rhythmically playful quality to the proceedings, while “Flower Talk” finds the trio exploring an abstract vocabulary of vocal sounds, instrumental echoes, and abrupt shifts between high and low registers. There are moments of striking delicacy, too. The brief “Passing Through” functions as an atmospheric interlude, while “On the Deck” adds percussion and bell-like textures, creating a more hypnotic backdrop for the trio’s intricate exchanges.

The closing “Coming Together” offers a fitting summation, its floating flute lines, resonant bassoon phrases, and soaring vocal passages gradually revealing the intuitive rapport at the heart of the project.

Recorded during a garden session organized by Silvano, First Flight captures three experienced improvisers embracing the freedom of a genuinely unusual ensemble. Its appeal lies less in conventional song structures than in the personalities, textures, and spontaneous discoveries that emerge when these musicians trust one another enough to take flight.