Credited to "the Quintet", the jazz group was composed of five leading "modern" players of the day: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach.

The original plan was for the Toronto New Jazz Society and the musicians to share the profits from the concert.

However, owing to a boxing prize fight between Rocky Marciano and Jersey Joe Walcott taking place simultaneously, the audience was so small that the Society was unable to pay the musicians' fees.

[8] Jazz authority Burt Korall says that for Roach, this performance was a "culmination on record of music and relationships developed in the 1940s."

An album of a trio set, played by Powell, Mingus and Roach at the concert, was also issued (tracks 6 through 11 above).