[5] It is one of the eight album releases comprising what is possibly Fitzgerald's greatest musical legacy: Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Complete American Songbook,[6] in which she recorded, with top arrangers and musicians, a comprehensive collection of both well-known and obscure songs from the Great American Songbook canon, written by the likes of Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, George and Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, and Johnny Mercer.

[7] Ira Gershwin subsequently said that "I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them".

[10] The French painter Bernard Buffet created five paintings that were used as artworks for the five individual LPs that made the original album release.

[11] The deluxe set was packaged in a walnut box, with the five Buffet paintings issued as detachable lithographs.

Stewart's liner notes were included as a separate hardback book, The Gershwins: Words Upon Music.