The set was released in conjunction with Up Swing during the American Federation of Musicians strike and features popular recordings by the various artists.

The album's sides were titled Big Hit of, with the year released after; Smoke Rings features songs from 1936 to 1943.

This could be misleading: According to Joel Whitburn, the four songs by bandleaders Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Larry Clinton and Glenn Miller were all number one hits.

Ellington's "I Got It Bad" hit only the 17th position, while Artie Shaw's "All The Things You Are" and Freddy Martin's "Intermezzo" placed inside the top ten, at numbers 8 and 7 respectively.

Both releases may have been to make up for lost sales: Victor's cancellation of the contracts to Oklahoma and Carmen Jones was a solid sock, as the Oklahoma album has sold almost 300,000 copies, the greatest album sale in the history of the disk biz.