The CD comes with an essay by Ravi Coltrane, the saxophonist's son and the album's producer.
According to the New York Times, Ravi Coltrane found the tapes that became One Down, One Up in a closet in his mother's house in 1991. He told the Times that the songs on the new album mark the beginning of the last phase of Coltrane's career, before Tyner and Jones left the group in 1966 to be replaced with Coltrane's daughter, Alice, on piano, and Rashied Ali on drums.