Count Basie and his band recorded “One O’clock Jump” on their first recording session for Decca Records in July, 1937. The recording was an immediate hit for Basie and the first for the group following their arrival in New York City. The song made the charts several times in the years that followed:

• Count Basie and His Orchestra (1937, #15)
• Harry James and His Orchestra (1938, #7)
• Benny Goodman and His Orchestra (1938, #8)
• Metronome All-Star Band (1941, #13)
• Count Basie and His Orchestra (1947, #12)

William “Count” Basie formed his first band, Basie’s Barons of Swing, in Kansas City in 1935. A veteran of the popular Kansas City band led by Bennie Moten, Basie assembled his first group following Moten’s death, utilizing a number of Moten’s sidemen. The band soon found steady employment at K.C.’s Reno Club. In the excellent book Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop--A History by Frank Driggs and Chuck Haddix, the authors quote a 1936 Downbeat article written by Dave Dexter, who described an evening at the Reno. Dexter’s opinion of the band was that it “needed seasoning” but had a lot to offer. He wasn’t so keen on the Reno, which he described as “a dive” and “one of the town’s most unsavory holes.”

Nevertheless, an advantage of the Reno was a connection to experimental radio station W9XBY, which broadcast the band live from the club. One night the band played a riff tune based on a 12-bar blues, which had been “arranged” by Basie and alto saxophonist Buster Smith. It was titled “Blue Balls.” The radio announcer asked if the band would play the tune but said he couldn’t use that title on the air. He suggested, since it was nearing one a.m., “One O’clock Jump.” The title stuck, and not only did the now-forgotten announcer dream up the tune’s title, he was the first to call Basie “Count.”

Due to these radio broadcasts the band was heard throughout the country, and efforts by fans like promoter John Hammond and writer Dave Dexter started the ball rolling for the group’s eventual trip to New York and stardom. Although alto saxophonist Buster Smith had been an integral part of the band and creator of many of the band’s arrangements, he stayed in Kansas City, missing out on the chance of a lifetime and composer credit for “One O’clock Jump.”

Basie adopted the tune for his theme song, and the earliest recorded performance of the band, a radio broadcast from June 1937, closes with the tune. The number spawned two follow-up arrangements: “Two O’clock Jump,” recorded by Harry James in 1939, and the “One O’clock Boogie” which Basie recorded in 1947 and which hit the charts that year.

In 1945 Lee Gaines, a vocalist in with the Delta Rhythm Boys, wrote lyrics to Basie’s tune, one of the earliest examples of what has come to be known as “vocalese,” words sung to what were the originally improvised jazz solos.