The general consensus is, certainly among those who made the gig, that Ron McCurdy and Ice T's Langston Hughes project Twelve Moods For Jazz was one of the highlights of last year's London Jazz Festival. The concert celebrated the richness of the words of Hughes, the pioneering poet who was a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, and this album works well for the same reason; the great socio-cultural and political substance of his texts, the bulk of which dates from the 1940s, has not lessened over time. The genius is there in admirably prescient pieces such as ‘Song Of The Refugee Road’, with its apparently simple but bitingly topical plea ‘where do I go from here?’ While the words provide a formidable core the assembled band, a pan-European ensemble spearheaded by Danish guitarist-vocalist Hasse Polusen and Copenhagen-based American vocalist Debbie Cameron, is pleasingly broad in stylistic range, swaying between blues, rock and free-ish grooves that vividly capture the sense of inquiry and restlessness of so much of Hughes’ work. While many of the arrangements have a slightly austere edginess to them they are leavened by a delicacy of touch from the players, above all Sanders, who reins in the well known fierce energy that he is capable of unleashing to create a backdrop of beats that are as caressing as they are jolting. Artists continue to interpret Hughes’ work because of its ongoing relevance to the world in which we live. This is a worthwhile addition to the canon.