Recordings by the superb Howard University Jazz Ensemble have been surfacing like clockwork each year since shortly after the orchestra was formed in 1975 by its first (and only) music director, Fred Irby III. Sometimes the albums have overall themes, while others (such as this one) are dedicated to one or more of the university's distinguished alumni.

Andrew Nathaniel White III, a Washingtonian who graduated cum laude from Howard in 1964, was a multi-instrumentalist whose notable career spanned the worlds of jazz, classical and popular music. From 1968 to 1970, White served as principal oboist with the American Ballet Theatre. He later played electric bass with Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding and the Fifth Dimension, recorded on oboe and English horn with Weather Report, and appeared as a sideman with