Considering Don Byas’ place in the tenor scheme of things, the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD is unequivocal: “Byas dominates the strip of turf between Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker”; before reflecting: “Hard these days to recognise just how highly regarded Byas once was until one actually hears him”.

It is the special merit of this latest Mosaic wonder-box that it addresses and reinforces both these pronouncements.

It supports (through booklet essayist Loren Schoenberg’s expert testimony) the critical placement of Byas as a significant tenor-saxophone innovator.

Its sheer range (10 carefully curated CDs), then allows the present-day listener to catch up and marvel at Byas’ assured playing. What better way, then, to fully realise his importance? Add to their customary largesse, the usual Mosaic qualities – peerless recorded sound, keen-eyed research, and provenance, and of course, durability, and you have yet another Mosaic prize eminently worth pursuing.

Carlos Wesley ‘Don’ Byas was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma in 1913 and took to music early on, settling on the alto saxophone and by the late 1920s, had hooked up with his fellow-townsman, pianist Jay McShann, playing and traveling locally. Having subbed in various touring orchestras, he entered Langstone University in 1930 and there ran his own band, Don Carlos and His Collegiate Ramblers with considerable success.

A tenor adoptee, three years later he was on the West Coast with Lionel Hampton’s band and encountered pianist Art Tatum, saying: ‘That’s where I got my style from. I just blow, like Art. Art really turned me on. That’s when doors opened up for me music-wise”. By 1937, Byas was in New York working his way through a series of top big bands, eventually joining Count Basie in January 1941. In November 1943 he moved over to the early bebop band led by Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Pettiford at the Onyx on 52nd Street, ready and able to espouse the modernist cause.

Thereafter he was seldom out of the studios for long, connecting with every player of consequence, swing or bebop-inclined, Mosaic’s collection covering some 50 such sessions, the first three CDs collecting those made for Savoy, National and Majestic, with a further four devoted to the rarely heard private recordings (false starts and all) set up by Timme RosenKrantz, the Danish aristocrat and Byas supporter, the remainder from miscellaneous labels, with alternative takes run at the end of each CD.

So, a mass of music to absorb from this 21-month period, producer Scott Wenzel explaining that a further 13 sessions from 1944-46 that might have been considered are owned elsewhere. Initially a Hawkins man, by this time Byas was ‘widely recognised as the prime tenor player of the period’, according to Jazzwise’s Brian Priestley, his massive tone, seamless facility, and harmonic nous shining through every track. Sumptuous on ballads and imperious when required, Byas kept the best of company, straddling the swing style of trumpeters Page and Shavers, and the more advanced concepts of Gillespie and Parker (teamed here with Byas for the immortal Rubberlegs Williams session) with insouciant aplomb.

By 1946, he had settled in Europe, embarking on another kind of career altogether. But that’s a different story.