One O'Clock Jump

Basie wrote it in 1937, though the melody grew from riffs the band played, and Eddie Durham and Buster Smith helped him shape it. The band first played it near the end of a radio broadcast from the Reno Club at close to one in the morning. It was reportedly called Blue Ball at first, but an announcer feared that title was too risque. Basie recalled that the band hit it with the rhythm section, went into the riffs, and the riffs just stuck. It rests on head arrangements, each section choosing its part from what the others play, with soloists improvising over the top. Basie recorded it for Decca in 1937. A Library of Congress essay by John Wriggle notes that having two tenor saxophone soloists, Herschel Evans and Lester Young, was a noteworthy stunt at the time, and helped build the band's reputation for tenor battles.

It became the orchestra's theme and closed its concerts for about half a century. Benny Goodman played it at his 1938 Carnegie Hall concert, and Harry James recorded a variant, Two O'Clock Jump, in 1939. Lambert, Hendricks & Ross recorded a vocalese version in 1958, and the drummer Neil Peart of Rush used it in his drum solos on tours in 2002 and 2004. It entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1979 and the National Recording Registry in 2005.