[1] Ellington originally named it "La Plus Belle Africaine" when he composed it for the Negro Arts Festival in Dakar.
[2] He recorded it with Max Roach and Charles Mingus as "La Fleurette Africaine".
According to Janna Tull Steed, the composition was the result of Ellington's "imaginary vision of a beautiful flower blooming "only for God" in the heart".
It is the very first entry in Volume One of the Real Book, the original fakebook which appeared in the 1970s but has been brought up to date and made legal.
[4] Scott Saul says of the recording with Mingus and Roach: "Mingus spirals down the bass clef to create a stirring contrapuntal line that evenly balances the stateliness of Ellington's theme.