By 1959, the Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul Desmond had been in existence for nearly a decade and it was highly popular among jazz audiences (the bass player and the drummer changed a few times until Joe Morello arrived in 1956 and Eugene Wright joined the group in 1958/59). Jazz Impressions of Eurasia is a studio album inspired by the quartet's 1958 world tour sponsored by the American state department, during which they played 80 concerts in 14 countries, including Turkey, Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, over three months. The album precedes the somewhat similar concept of The Far East Suite by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn inspired by a similar State Department world tour, which appeared eight years later.
