Sammy Cahn has said of the conception of the sixteen-bar song: "This song was written one night in Palm Springs. When I sang the last line, Jule Styne looked over at me and said, 'So. That's it.' I knew he felt we could have written on, but I felt I had said all there was to say, and if I had it to do over, I would stop right there again."[2]
Miles Davis first recorded the song for Seven Steps to Heaven and it became part of the repertoire of his 1960s quintets with Herbie Hancock and later Chick Corea. In concert, Davis and Corea's duet evolved into an introduction to Wayne Shorter's Sanctuary: an improvisation derived (and abstracted) from the song provides an introduction and interlude to Shorter's composition on the album Bitches Brew.