Marsalis's first recording for his new label Marsalis Music after 18 years on Sony Music, the album features the quartet's recording of four significant works of jazz from the years 1955 to 1964, including works by Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins (The Freedom Suite), John Coltrane (A Love Supreme), and the Modern Jazz Quartet.

[1] John Fordham, reviewing the album in The Guardian, writes that "The pieces are all postwar jazz standards … but the band handles it all as if it were metal to be melted down and refashioned, not fine china to be merely dusted over.

"[5] Nate Chinen, in his JazzTimes review, says that the listening experience is "disconcerting to hear these opuses revisited so faithfully-all the more so because Marsalis, despite obvious burdens of influence, somehow manages to claim them as his own.

"[6] And writing in JazzReview, Samira Blackwell says, "The repertory might have some years on it, but the playing does not suffer at all and provides a phenomenal vehicle for Marsalis’s indomitable personality.

On the contrary, he offers a decidedly fresh perspective on these milestones, attaining profound balladry in certain passages of 'Freedom,' and ferocious energy and a searing intensity in the climactic sections of 'Supreme.