Grace Fox is still a student at the Manhattan School of Music, but she is clearly ambitious and used social media to put together a big band of like-minded female musicians across the United States, drawn from several different age groups. Citing such bands as the International Sweethearts of Rhythm as her model, she has the laudable aim of creating a comparably significant band in today’s era when much of jazz is still male-dominated. There’s no doubt that she is already a strong and authoritative trumpet soloist.

But brilliantly played as it is, much of her big band writing and overall approach seems beached somewhere around 1980, and indeed the later work of Bob Brookmeyer, Vince Mendoza or the more atmospheric writing of Maria Schneider seem barely to have touched her.

There are hints of the latter on a track called ‘The Gospel’ but Fox’s most original writing comes in ‘Sterility’ a track designed to highlight the isolation of collective music-making in lockdown, and built around the idea of a click track, with Elliott’s EWI pointing towards contemporary technology. But the most glorious playing, with the full throated roar of the band at its best, is firmly back in the tradition on Jimmy McHugh’s standard ‘I Just Found Out About Love’ with a fine vocal from Grace’s sister Alexis.