The 23-year-old trumpeter Reuben Fowler’s debut album on the Edition label represents part of his prize for winning the Kenny Wheeler Award in 2012, the same year he graduated from London’s Royal Academy of Music. The veteran US trumpeter Tom Harrell has been an important mentor to Fowler during his studies, and he is one of three high pedigree guests alongside Stan Sulzmann on soprano sax and Jim Hart on vibes. Of course Fowler is barely out of the womb in jazz terms, so this highly ambitious orchestral project is more of a showcase for his elegantly crafted orchestration and arranging skills than anything else. It’s drawn up from what sounds like a love of the works of large contemporary chamber post-bop ensembles from Gil Evans through to Maria Schneider and Kenny Wheeler. A harmonically adventurous set of compositions, the soloists, both Fowler’s peers and guests, are able to demonstrate their improvising individuality with confidence, Harrell and Hart on the svengali-influenced ‘Dundry’. Compared to the otherwise huge amount of preparation that’s obviously gone into the recordings, the contributions of a pair of fine vocalists Brigitte Beraha and the Argentinean Guillermo Rozenthuler sound more like an afterthought, especially the latter with an oddly brief, shadowy cameo on the otherwise impressive latin-ish track, ‘The Lost and Found’. But Fowler demonstrates a maturity well beyond his years, especially with the discerning selections he makes from his palette of ensemble colours within the shifting shapes of his arrangements.