One O'Clock Jump [History]

About One O'Clock Jump [History]

For the 1957 album featuring Count Basie, Joe Williams and Ella Fitzgerald see One O'Clock Jump (album)"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. "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. In 1979, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Later, it was listed in the Songs of the Century. The song is typical of Basie's early riff style. The instrumentation is based on "head arrangements" where each section makes up their part based on what the other sections are playing. more »