This trio of releases from 26-year-old trumpeter-and-more Jack Davies constitute an impressive calling card. Davies won the Deutsche Bank award for performance and composition last year and swiftly invested the money in creating his own label, V&V Music, the first three fruits of which & quite properly – serve as a showcase for his own varied talents as player, composer and conductor. They're all interesting and highly accomplished: all the more impressive when you consider that they were recorded across a period of under six weeks. The pick is perhaps the big band disc, which shows off Davies' penchant for orchestral music (he did a classical music degree at the Royal Northern College of Music before going on to a jazz course at the Royal Academy of Music). The writing is both muscular and tender, and Davies' ability to incorporate influences as complex as Charles Ives as seamlessly as he does at this stage of his career is promising indeed. Soloists include names to conjure with such as Josh Arcoleo, Martin Speake and Joe Wright. That Colin Towns – in whose Mask Orchestra Davies has played – served as producer also probably helped. The result is exemplary contemporary big band music. Flea Circus inhabits a different sonic world, thanks largely to the presence of Aidan Shepherd on accordion. A source here is Gus Viseur's work with Django Reinhardt; Gustav Mahler was also kind enough to donate a tune (‘Sehr Gesangvoll’). Davies gives notice of his improvising chops here: Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard and classical influences all have an impact on his style. Southbound – the only disc not to bear Davies' name in the billing – is the most democratic of the projects, with all four members contributing to the writing. The quartet met at the RNCM some years ago, so it's perhaps unsurprising that the project has strong classical bones. It's also the most spacious musically, with some satisfyingly daring improvisational work.