Born into a circus family in Albany (Ga) in 1916, Harry James learned to play the trumpet with his father, and joined Ben Pollack before he was twenty. Late in 1936, he started to play with Benny Goodman and in 1939 left to form his own group. It was then that he started to play sweet rather than hot, which led many people to forget his Jazz foundation. He retired from music at the beginning of the 1950s, but later returned to the scene, reformed a band and toured Europe, playing in the Jazz idiom once again. He thus regained his stature as a Jazz musician, and has continued to play and tour, with great popularity, amongst a new public.
- Taken from the liner notes