Last year Douglas and pals released an album a month, each with a different theme: voting rights, racial equality, women’s rights. Some themes are universal: peace, or loving the environment; others more USA specific, like sensible gun laws. Brexit, you may be relieved to hear, is not on the list. Uplift culls a dozen tracks from those releases, raising not only awareness, but encouraging positive action. Our letters’ page of course spills over with ‘jazz ain’t about politics’ discourses. But let us say that Douglas and company simply suggest good people only have to do nothing for evil to flourish. So Douglas does what he and his cohort do best: make mighty music. Somehow the collective – itself a political statement: each individual has room to express themselves while working toward a shared harmony – neither tips into earnest hectoring, nor reverts to happy-clappy sloganeering. Instead, Uplift kicks off with the urgently driven ‘The Power of the Vote’, but soon also evokes the mysterious ambiences of In A Silent Way, as on the guitar intertwining of ‘Lift All Boats’ and ‘Trail of Dreams’. Douglas’ horn is very at home here, with his Miles-like (but never imitative) phrasing and intonation. His sense of space and clarity of expression contrasts and complements Lovano’s gruff and grumpy (though never unmelodic) attack. It would, of course, be pernicious to single out individuals in this democratic alliance, but Halvorson’s colourings are especially vibrant, a rare voice, but one to celebrate. Rather like the intent of this release. Peace, love and understanding. What’s so funny about that?