On December 4, 1992, Diana Ross took the stage of the Ritz Theatre in New York for a concert commemorating her appearance as in the film biography Lady Sings the Blues 20 years before. She was backed by an A-list of jazz musicians, and her set list consisted of jazz and pop standards from the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, most of them associated with This "special, intimate evening of jazz and blues," as Ross put it, was devoted to "what jazz and blues is really about, which is loose and free and mellow." Despite earning an Academy Award nomination for her acting and topping the pop charts as part of the soundtrack album of Lady Sings the Blues, Ross had not earned much recognition for her jazz singing, and although by 1992 she was four years past the age at which herself died, she was still essentially a pop singer.