Granz and Holiday chose familiar items from the Great American Songbook of classic pop for the album, Holiday singing in the context comfortable for her, that of a small jazz band. The original album consisted of six standards, five of which by songwriters who would be categorically tackled by Ella Fitzgerald on her Songbooks series. The sessions reunited Holiday with trumpeter Harry Edison and saxophonist Ben Webster, both of whom the singer had worked with during the 1930 and 1940's, Edison as a member of the Count Basie Orchestra during her brief stay as the band's girl singer, and Webster from the recordings under her own name for Vocalion Records and Okeh Records.