Gatherings of any scale having been outlawed these past months, you might have thought big bands had been banned. But, as this new release shows, even lockdown can't stop blowers and their collaborators from locking horns and other instruments if they share a sense of mission, a bit of technical know-how and a high degree of musicianship. Here the composers, Misha Mullov-Abbado, Tom Smith and Billy Marrows, circulated click tracks to the rhythm section, who laid down an initial track, which was then sent to the section leads and so on, until the soloists were ready to improvise their parts, and the rhythm players could redo their contributions. Et voilà! It turns out there's absolutely no reason for musicians actually to meet up to play together ever again – that orchestras can work from home is good news of a kind, although with a bit of luck it won't remain an essential condition of their future endeavours together. Anyway, it's great to hear new music from a large ensemble, and the Patchwork Jazz Orchestra have done a spectacular job in keeping a strong spark of spontaneity even when creating music in such a necessarily atomised fashion. It's described as an ‘EP’ but the five tracks stretch to more than 39 minutes, or what we used to call a full album length. How the world has changed!