In 1979, following the departure of B.B. Dickerson during recording sessions for their next album (replaced by Luther Rabb on bass who completed the album), the band considered changing their name to The Music Band, but decided at the last minute to continue as War, and use "The Music Band" as the title of a series of albums. The series originally consisted of two studio albums ("The Music Band", "The Music Band 2", both in 1979) and a live album ("The Music Band Live", 1980), but after the band left MCA in 1981 and had already made records for other labels, MCA expanded the series with a compilation ("The Best of the Music Band", 1982) and a third original album of left-over material ("The Music Band – Jazz", 1983).