A great contemporary bassist, McBride has also become an important educator and advocate for both the artform and African-American culture in recent years. This is his most explicit socially-conscious statement to date, celebrating the lives of Civil Rights icons, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Dr Martin Luther King jnr in an orchestral setting which lends grace and grandeur to the subject.

However, the decision to bring a strong element of spoken word to the arrangements is inspired, first and foremost because Sonia Sanchez, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Dion Graham and Wendell Pierce have such commanding voices, and their narrations of statements made by the aforementioned do not want for conviction.

McBride’s composing is soulful and parallels Max Roach’s 1971 gospel-infused classic Lift Every Voice And Sing. As was the case with Roach’s work, McBride deploys a choir, Voices Of The Flame, to soul-stirring effect, and the way they weave in and out of the songs, above all the greasy, downhome funk of the Ali tribute ‘Rumble In The Jungle’ is a marvel. The political magnitude of this album is given a sharp topical twist by a passage of Barack Obama’s words, which inevitably invites opinion on the state of race relations in the America led by his considerably less eloquent successor.

Jazzwise spoke to Christian McBride:

Was this your most challenging and personal project to date?

In terms of just the sheer volume of people involved, yes. This music was written and re-written and augmented over the course of 12 years, so I was under no pressure to compose under a deadline.

Why did you make spoken word a defining feature of the album?

I first conceived of this piece as being music written to the words of the four icons – Parks, X, Ali and Dr King. I could have written just music, but I think having the spoken word along with the music makes it emotionally stronger.

The album celebrates Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Dr Martin Luther King. What do they mean to you, personally?

They mean to me what I believe they mean to the world. I cannot give any further specific observations to their courage and fearlessness that hasn’t been expressed by millions across the world already.

Why is gospel so integral to the composing?

Gospel wasn’t a particularly integral part of my musical upbringing, but I know it was an integral part of the era that these four icons were a part of. Not only was the fight for justice the core of the civil rights movement, but spiritualism was also.

Did you close with the Barack Obama speech in order to make us think about America today?

I was not alive during the time that Rosa, Malcolm, Muhammad and Dr King were changing the landscape of the world, but I was certainly alive when Obama was elected president. To me, his election was sort of an apotheosis of the movement. He was able to become president because of the work and sacrifices of all of the freedom fighters of not just the civil rights era, but before and after the civil rights era. So my including his victory speech from 2008 was a way of bringing it to the present, and to also remind everyone of what hope and optimism felt like in 2008. It doesn’t seem like there’s much hope and optimism in the world today.