Dripping with atmosphere - it's been so long since we have reviewed anything by Michael J McEvoy - nearly a decade since The Long Way Home in fact. Different this time around, The Jazz Sapiens Big Band is the formidable juggernaut who drive the tunes hard, an incredible collection of top UK players - drummer Mark Mondesir, bassist Karl Rasheed Abel known for his work with Soweto Kinch, McEvoy on piano, trumpeters Kevin Robinson, Freddie Gavita and Tom Walsh, saxists Paul Booth, Graeme Blevins and often crucially in the arangements great trombone from Robbie Harvey and Richard Henry. The band assembled to record the score for the documentary, The Jazz Ambassadors and McEvoy's score inspired by African American musicians sent overseas by the US State Department to perform in Africa, the Middle East and Europe is in focus here recorded at London's Air-Edel with the music expanded by arrangements of the composer's and by Paul Booth. Written in such a way that there is room for some fine soloing notably the sax playing on 'Valley of the Kings' it's one of the finest UK jazz big band releases of 2023 full of tenderness, narrative development and plenty of sheer power. Anyone interested in the idiom needs to hear this right away.