Jazz has always been the music of the movement of peoples, the soundtrack to the journeys, some chosen, more often forced, that mark the migrations of humankind. Few artists witness these journeys as wisely and lyrically, yet infused with pain, as Loueke. These cuts have an intimacy, yet also a universality, that make them a must listen: from the opening ‘Bouriyan’, that includes Brazilian and Benin sounds, reflecting the forced return of Black Brazilians to west Africa, to the lament of ‘Vi Gnin’ honouring contemporary migrants drowned on Western borders that are closed to them, The Journey is an often hushed, but never sentimental, paean to loss but also to a spirit that refuses to be crushed. The instrumentation is as subtle as Loueke’s playing: Ellis’ sax illuminates ‘Molika’ and ‘Mande’, which features remarkable peul flute from Dembele. But it is Baptista and Orisha’s percussion soundscapes that speak, and listen, most intimately to Loueke’s tones. An album, not just of the year or the decade, but for all time, as long as the sky has to look down on families forced to move, move, move.