The material on Jackies Bag was recorded over the course of two sessions, some eighteen months apart. The first session, held in January 1959 at Rudy Van Gelders studio in Englewood Cliffs, resulted in three tracks being recorded. For some reason record label Blue Note was unimpressed and confined the tracks to the vault, sending Jackie back into the studio to work on what would ultimately be the album New Soil. There would be a further two albums released before Jackies Bag got revived. This time around a session at Van Gelders studio in September 1960 saw a further three tracks being recorded, although they were also initially stockpiled. By June 1961 it had been some six months since Jackie had an album out on the market, prompting a sweep of the vault to find likely tracks. Thus Jackies Bag was compiled rather than created, with the general consensus being that it was one of the strongest albums in his catalogue.