One of jazz’s most sublime and overlooked bassists and a pioneer in bringing the cello into the jazz repertory, Sam Jones, was born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1924.

When he arrived in New York in 1955 he soon found himself and his bass among stellar jazz fellowship, including stints with trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Kenny Dorham, Thelonius Monk and most prominently, a part of the rhythm section with drummer Louis Hayes of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet from 1959 to 1965.

The huge respect that he achieved among the finest jazz musicians of the era — they all called him “Home” Jones because he called everybody else “Home” — became evident in 1960-62 when he made three classic albums for the Riverside label, and many of them came forward to play in them as his sidemen.

Trumpeters Nat Adderley, Blue Mitchell and Clark Terry, saxophonists Cannonball and Jimmy Heath, trombonists Melba Liston and Jimmy Cleveland, pianists Wynton Kelly, Bobby Timmons and Londoner Victor Feldman, drummers Hayes and Ben Riley and fellow arch bassist Ron Carter all turned out.

Now this trio of epochal albums has been reissued on Fresh Sound label as a “three-fer” and they sound as good as ever.

The first is The Soul Society of 1960 and Jones’s plucked cello swings its path alongside Heath’s rugged tenor sax in the opener Some Kinda Mean, prefacing Nat’s high note solo and a comradely chorus from Sam’s bass partner, Keter Betts. Just Friends finds Sam’s cello in balladic vein, a lulling solo from Nat.

Deep Blue Cello is just that, with Home dancing his strings through five minutes of sheer cello artistry.

No Greater Love again exposes the cello as a frontline jazz force for perhaps the first recorded time and All Members is a succession of short solos led by the formidable Mitchell and Jones reverting to bass. Timmons shows his customary gospellised chops.

In The Old Country Mitchell blows Nat’s theme with a beautiful melodism and Cannonball’s tune Home features Jones and his dexterous bass work with sprightly solos all round.

The closer is Timmons’s So Tired with Sam’s bass picking out the theme and digging deep in his solo, and a beautifully languid chorus from the underrated Davis.

In 1961, Home recorded a second album, The Chant, this time with an 11-piece group. Familiar standards like Sonny Boy and Over The Rainbow are included with bop fare such as Charlie Parker’s Bluebird and Miles Davis’s Four.

Virtuoso cello performances, as on the Parker piece where Mitchell and Nat soar beside each other, are juxtaposed with powerful solos all round, such as Feldman on vibes in Over The Rainbow, and Nat on Feldman’s album title tune.

James plays bass on the last four tracks, soloing in front of riffing hornmen in Benny Golson’s Blues on Down, and on his salute to fellow bassman Ray Brown, In Walked Ray, his true bass brilliance shines out of every blissful solo note.

Down Home was made in 1962 with two different line-ups. Frank Strozier’s flute is to the fore of Jones’s opening title tune and Sam’s flicking cello solo precedes a chorus from Ron Carter’s bass.

Monk’s Round Midnight follows, its sublime theme perfect for Jones’s plucked delights.

OP is Home’s tribute to another great bassman, once the pulse of the Ellington orchestra, Oscar Pettiford. Full of fleeting phrases, future Weather Report pianist Joe Zawinul plays a compelling solo before Sam emulates his old hero on cello.

The songbook standards, Falling in Love with Love and Come Rain or Come Shine are astonishingly fluent string jewels, the first with Jones’s cello, the second with Jones and a younger virtuoso, Carter, sharing a bass duet.

The last four tracks feature a tentet with arrangements by big band man Ernie Wilkins.

Jones is in his element playing alongside Carter, Wynton Kelly (hear his quicksilver piano solo on Horace Silver’s Strollin’) the ever-mercurial Nat and Heath who blows a storming solo on Jones’s Unit 7.

The farewell track is Ray Brown’s Thumbstring, a wonderful valedictory jazz message.

Jones died in 1981, still at the apex of his powers. But these early ’60s sessions with the committed artistry of so many of his hugely talented contemporaries show what a radiant light he shone.