These styles opposed each other, and during his career Shaw's attempts to make art music oftentimes failed because it wasn't commercially viable.

Frustrated with the way his black musicians such as Billie Holiday were treated,[5] the commercial nature of playing hit songs repetitively, and the music business in general, Shaw disbanded his orchestra in November 1939 and took 2 months off in a brief move to Acapulco, Mexico.

[7] Reforming his band in early 1940 with the addition of a string section, Shaw recorded the song in March, which first appeared on Billboard charts on August 3.

"[9] Radio and Television Mirror briefly recommended it,[10] and while Variety was positive, they noted the potential of fans to disagree with Victor's selections, due to the contrast between Shaw's more orchestral leanings and popular, danceable swing material.

[11] The American Music Lover, a publication mainly devoted to classical music, assigned the album four "A"s, their highest rating: Don't look at the album and think it's re-hash of old stuff... Admit instead that it was a clever stunt on Victor's part to recouple eight sides of Artie's best contributions made during various stages of that mind-changing-about-musicians career of his... Artie, as a musician, shines in each piece... they're all well done.

In 1950, after the format war between vinyl discs subsided, RCA Victor reached a cross-liscening agreement with Columbia to issue their records on LP.