Limited 180 gram vinyl LP pressing. Recorded for Roulette on two consecutive days April 3 and 4, 1961 in New York, Ellington, Armstrong and four fellow musicians including Barney Bigard (clarinet), Trummy Young (trombone), Mort Herbert (bass) and Danny Barcelona (drums) recorded a total of 17 tracks, enough for two albums. The present LP was released in 1961, while it's companion album, entitled The Great Reunion, was put on the market in 1963. "Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were (and are) two of the main stems of jazz. Any way you look at it, just about everything that's ever happened in this music leads directly - or indirectly - back to them. Both men were born on the cusp of the 19th and 20th centuries, and each became established as a leader during the middle '20s. Although their paths had crossed from time to time over the years, nobody in the entertainment industry had ever managed to get Armstrong and Ellington into a recording studio to make an album together."