It might seem glib to say that a serious subject such as the Civil Rights movement, or more precisely its landmark moments, from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the Little Rock Nine, require serious music. But this deeply moving and artistically ambitious work gives credence to the statement. Smith brings immense gravitas to the concert performances on this handsomely packaged four-disc set. Throughout his career, the trumpeter-composer has staked his claim as a purveyor of ideas, concepts and ‘imaginings’ in the most complete way, and the epic, multi-textured nature of the music shows his ambition to be undimmed. A continuum is created between three ensembles – the Golden quartet, the same group augmented to a quintet and Southwest Chamber Music [tentet] – and it is in the flow of sounds from brass and rhythm section to strings that the magic lies. Each unit is highly individual, texturally, but nonetheless connected by way of the ambiences they serve to create, and although it is tempting to argue that the four-piece really represents Smith's improvisatory dynamic, and the ten-piece his composerly exertions, the dividing line is not so clear.

Rather than create a jazz-contemporary classical amalgamation there is as much writing in the small group as there is playing in the large, and what Smith is really doing is showing how the piercing timbres of brass, piano, bass and drums can have effective cousins and counterpoints in harps, violins and cellos, how the extraversion and intimacy of the ‘club’ group coheres with the intimacy and extraversion of the ‘chamber’ ensemble. Tenderness and violence, in line with the subject matter, are not separate and equal but rather liable to move in and out of each other, as populations, of all races, do, under the essentially human impulse of migration and social reconstruction. Of the 19 pieces on offer it is difficult to chose a highlight, but for its bottomless emotional depth and gripping use of imagery – Davis' piano figures are healing, baptismal waters; akLaff's drums are feint, tortured breaths; Smith's trumpet lines are howl and hymn – then ‘September 11, 2001: A Memorial’ is hard to top. It is part of a grandiose musical fresco that captures a key moment of history without the slightest concession to sentimentality or artifice.