| One O'Clock Jump | |
| Cover: | One O'Clock Jump cover.jpg |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Count Basie |
| B-Side: | John's Idea |
| Released: | 1937 |
| Recorded: | July 7, 1937, New York, NY |
| Genre: | Jazz |
| Length: | 3:02 |
| Label: | Decca 1363 |
"One O'Clock Jump" is a jazz standard; a 12-bar blues instrumental, written by Count Basie in 1937.
The melody derived from band members' riffs—Basie rarely wrote down musical ideas, so Eddie Durham and Buster Smith helped him crystallize his ideas. The original 1937 recording of the tune by Basie and his band is noted for the saxophone work of Herschel Evans and Lester Young, trumpet by Buck Clayton, Walter Page on bass, and Basie himself on piano.[1] The song is typical of Basie's early riff style. The song was called One O'Clock Jump because the band practiced usually late at 1 AM. The instrumentation is based on "head arrangements" where each section makes up their part based on what the other sections are playing.Individuals take turns improvising over the top of the entire sound. Basie recorded "One O'Clock Jump" several times after the original performance for Decca in June 1937. Notable live radio transcriptions of the song also exist, such as Basie's November 3, 1937 performance of the song at the Meadowbrook (Cedar Grove NJ).[2] Later, Basie recorded the song for Columbia in 1942 and 1950 and on a number of occasions in the fifties."One O'Clock Jump" became the theme song of the Count Basie Orchestra. They used it to close each of their concerts for the next half century. It was reportedly titled "Blue Ball" at first but a radio announcer feared that title was too risqué.[3]
In 1979, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[4] Later, it was listed in the Songs of the Century.