With its thick card gatefolds, distinctive graphics and bold photography, Impulse was one of the great brands of the 1960s. Producer Creed Taylor launched the label in style with a canny combination of airplay hits, marketable "concepts" and an artist-friendly attitude towards budgets and artistic freedom. But when Taylor handed over the reins to Bob Thiele a year later, he had just secured something more propitious: a contract with up-and-coming saxophonist John Coltrane.

This four-CD compilation includes many of the most enduring Impulse stars, such as Gil Evans, Charles Mingus, Yusef Lateef, Gabor Szabo, Charlie Haden, Archie Shepp, Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, and all 33 minutes of The Creator Has a Master Plan, sung by Leon Thomas. There's also lots by the prolific Coltrane, who died in 1967. It's fascinating to note that though he was the label's most uncompromising artist, he became (and remains) its most commercially successful star. Which explains the title of this compilation by Ashley Kahn, whose fascinating book of the same title is out this month.