The CTI sound, not cool at all for many years especially if you were into the New Thing and stuck with it as your preferred style into the 1970s, is incredibly cool now.

The process towards greater appreciation began among tastemakers in the 1990s. And maybe cheekily and not a little confusingly if you are hung up on terminology given this isn’t Cool School jazz with the odd exception (and the only revolutions going on here are on a small shiny disc player) the snappily-titled CTI Records: The Cool Revolution, a new 4-CD set, is coming soon to be released on 4 May.

The good news is these tracks are remastered using the original two-track analogue tapes, the label saying the reissue “celebrates the vintage years of CTI, when a distinctive style and sound were born.” Five hours of music are presented including the staggering swagger of ‘Sugar,’ above, which kicks the whole shebang and the first disc off. Artists featured in this retrospective include Chet Baker, Freddie Hubbard, Grover Washington Jr, George Benson and Paul Desmond. Sony are flogging the reissue at midprice.

CTI is named after the legendary records man Creed Taylor who years earlier had invented the name for Impulse Records and headed up that deeply revered label when it began in the early-1960s. The Virginian, a Korean War veteran, who cut his teeth as an A&R with Bethlehem, after Impulse went on to head Verve and later, duly Incorporated, CTI was born initially in an arrangement with A&M before becoming an indie later to be later swallowed up by the majors and pawed with according to marketing whims.