Artists featured on the album include Harry James, Count Basie, Big Joe Turner, and the three prominent boogie-woogie pianists of the time, Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, and Meade Lux Lewis.

Record producer John Hammond invited Johnson and Turner to New York to appear at Carnegie Hall along with Ammons and Lewis in the first "From Spirituals to Swing" concert held on December 23, 1938.

[2] Earlier that year, Hammond had paved the way for Jazz performances at Carnegie Hall by organizing the appearance of the Benny Goodman orchestra on January 16, 1938, which featured Harry James on trumpet.

[3][4] The day after the "From Spirituals to Swing" concert, Alan Lomax recorded Ammons, Lewis and Johnson for the Library of Congress.

Later that year, all three pianists were billed with James's own big band, featuring the then-unknown Frank Sinatra at the Hotel Sherman in Chicago.