This thoughtfully compiled, great-value double-disc set serves something of a dual purpose. For those who know Ronnie Scott, tenor saxophonist, it may well be a nostalgic reminder of his formative years. There’s also the likelihood that in hearing it, many who now cross the threshold of his eponymously-named club might at last realise that he was a real person with real talent rather than simply a legendary brand.

Avid has done a marvellous job in pulling together four albums that tell the story of the years just before he became mein host, bringing to vivid life the Soho-centric world of mid-1950s British modernism. Indeed, if there’s one word to characterise all the music heard here it is atmospheric.

Take the opening At The Royal Festival Hall set from 1956 in which Scott’s rabble-rousing crew play something at times close to proto-R&B, pausing only briefly to essay an early Stan Tracey chart revealing trumpeter Jimmy Deuchar to already be a world-class balladeer.

There’s more in-person excitement on the Jazz at The Flamingo set from the same year, which yokes Scott with the bubbling baritone of Harry Klein and, crucially given subsequent developments, a boisterous Tubby Hayes, in full wunderkind mode.

That British jazz was capable of creating players of international standard even then, despite a largely negative local press, is apparent from the get-go and it’s not just the horn players that impress. Pianists Stan Tracey and Terry Shannon are idiomatically smack on, with all the opprobrium heaped on the head of ‘English’ rhythm sections rendered nonsense by the likes of bassists Bush and Napper and each of the drummers, Seamen naturally coming out on top.

The second disc features a brightly recorded document of a lively sextet Scott took to the USA in 1957. Almost immediately afterwards Scott and Tubby Hayes joined forces in the Jazz Couriers, the band still widely regarded as finally heaving British modernism in line with that in America.

Their debut LP The Jazz Couriers Featuring Ronnie Scott closes proceedings and it is indeed a classic, mixing Hayes’ ingenious scores of Great American Songbook standbys (‘Cheek to Cheek’) with bang up to date borrowings from contemporary US repertoire by Hank Mobley and Tadd Dameron. The punch it packs is still considerable. But then Scott is in fine early form throughout, whether playing to the gallery (‘Flying Home’), unfurling his romantic side (‘All This and Heaven Too’) or going for broke on the blues (‘Laker’s Day’).

To sum up: the perfect place to make the musical acquaintance of a man who never quite knew how good a saxophonist he was. These records prove his doubts were ill-founded. And they really ought to find the ear of all those who think him a fabled or even fictitious figure. Both sound quality and playing time couldn’t be bettered. Oh, and the anonymous notes on the Festival Hall set are some of the best writing on Scott you’ll find anywhere.