Part erudite talk and considered thoughts on freedom, justice and hope overshadowed by slavery from NYU law professor Bryan Stevenson, part Ellingtonian rapture reaching the Wyntonian heights, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra has rarely sounded as inspired as here on this new 2021 recorded album issued to chime with the important celebration of Juneteenth in the United States today.

Because lest we forget or simply do not know on 19 June 1865 in Galveston Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the slavery emancipation proclamation at the end of the American Civil War thus beginning a long healing process, that has still not wholly resolved itself, given the enduring obscenity of slavery and its prolonged consequences.

Including protest songs most luminously and with the very best kept to last 'We Shall Overcome' also on this very wise and beautifully played album are versions of Fats Waller's 'Honeysuckle Rose,' Sonny Rollins' 'Freedom Suite' and John Coltrane classic, 'Alabama.'

Trumpeter Josh Evans' composition 'Elaine' drawn from Freedom, Justice and Hope.

Spoken word interludes based on Stevenson's words are calm, reflective, erudite and of Reith Lectures calibre in their sheer insight, wisdom and most of all listenability.

Also - clearly - a very decent pianist Stevenson joins the JALCO on the Waller classic and 'We Shall Overcome.' Freedom, Justice and Hope also includes a version of bass star Endea Owens' stirring new piece 'Ida's Crusade' that honours the journalist Ida B. Wells (1862-1931), a founder of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) who documented and wrote about lynching in the southern United States of the 1890s.

The free flowing delight, zest and raucousness conjured within Owens' piece calling and responding, coaxing and caressing, is a highlight, certainly. Owens is over at Ronnie Scott's this summer playing the great club on the eve of the UK General Election as the build-up begins in earnest towards the 65th anniversary of the foundation of the club this October.

Other spots we'd like to highlight on this fine Lockdownian performance that had no in-person audience present, and intially live streamed, are the reeds section - Sherman Irby, Ted Nash, Wynton's fellow New Orleanian the great Victor Goines, Walter Blanding, Paul Nedzela - who are fantastic in the introduction to 'We Shall Overcome.' Listening to the album overall the words of James Weldon Johnson given such an examination of a time ''felt in the days when hope unborn had died'' spring to mind. The hope in ''facing the rising sun of our new day begun'' ring true through words and the jazz that resound.