One O'Clock Jump
Encyclopedia
- For the 1957 album featuring Count BasieCount BasieWilliam "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, Joe WilliamsJoe Williams (jazz singer)Joe Williams was a well-known jazz vocalist, a baritone singing a mixture of blues, ballads, popular songs, and jazz standards.-Early life:...
and Ella FitzgeraldElla FitzgeraldElla Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
see One O'Clock Jump (album)
"One O'Clock Jump" is a jazz standard
Jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...
, a 12-bar blues instrumental
Instrumental
An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....
, written in 1937 by Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, with arrangement from Eddie Durham
Eddie Durham
Eddie Durham was an American jazz guitarist, trombonist, composer and musical arranger of the swing music medium born in San Marcos, Texas, probably best known for his work with musicians like Cab Calloway, Willie Bryant, Andy Kirk, Glenn Miller, Jimmie Lunceford and Count Basie, among others...
and Buster Smith
Buster Smith
Henry "Buster" Smith , also known as Professor Smith, was an American jazz alto saxophonist and mentor to Charlie Parker. Smith was instrumental in instituting the Texas Sax Sound with Count Basie and Lester Young in the 1930s...
. The original recording of the tune by Basie and his band is noted for the saxophone work of Herschel Evans
Herschel Evans
Herschel "Tex" Evans , was a tenor saxophonist who worked in the Count Basie Orchestra. He had also worked with Lionel Hampton and Buck Clayton...
and Lester Young
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
; trumpeting by Buck Clayton
Buck Clayton
Buck Clayton was an American jazz trumpet player who was a leading member of Count Basie’s "Old Testament" orchestra and a leader of mainstream-oriented jam session recordings in the 1950s. His principal influence was Louis Armstrong...
, Walter Page
Walter Page
Walter Sylvester Page , nicknamed "Hoss," was an African American jazz bassist and leader of the Oklahoma City Blue Devils jazz orchestra from 1925–1931...
on bass, and Basie himself on piano. "One O'Clock Jump" was the theme song of the Count Basie Orchestra
Count Basie Orchestra
The Count Basie Orchestra is a 16 to 18 piece big band, one of the most prominent jazz performing groups of the swing era, founded by Count Basie. The band survived the late '40s decline in big band popularity and went on to produce notable collaborations with singers such as Frank Sinatra and Ella...
; 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. It was listed in the Songs of the Century
Songs of the Century
The "Songs of the Century" list is part of an education project by the Recording Industry Association of America , the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc. that aims to "promote a better understanding of America’s musical and cultural heritage" in American schools...
.
The song is typical of Basie's early riff
RIFF
The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....
style.
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 later released "Jumpin' at the Woodside" in a similar style. Basie recorded "One O'Clock Jump" several times after the original performance for Decca in 1937, f.i. for Columbia
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
in 1942 and 1950 and on a number of occasions in the fifties.
"Two O'Clock Jump" was a performance by Harry James
Harry James
Henry Haag “Harry” James was a trumpeter who led a jazz swing band during the Big Band Era of the 1930s and 1940s. He was especially known among musicians for his astonishing technical proficiency as well as his superior tone.-Biography:He was born in Albany, Georgia, the son of a bandleader of a...
and his big band in 1939, slightly based on "One O'Clock Jump", but using triplets
Tuplet
In music a tuplet is "any rhythm that involves dividing the beat into a different number of equal subdivisions from that usually permitted by the...
. Several versions of the original by Harry James and Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
feature the "Two O'Clock Jump" ending. Lionel Hampton
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...
used the song as his theme song for a while as well.
A popular jazz standard
Jazz standard
Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...
for virtually all top swing bands and their fans and jitterbuggers, it was part of the concert bill for Benny Goodman's 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
.
Rush
Rush (band)
Rush is a Canadian rock band formed in August 1968, in the Willowdale neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario. The band is composed of bassist, keyboardist, and lead vocalist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson, and drummer and lyricist Neil Peart...
drummer Neil Peart
Neil Peart
Neil Ellwood Peart , OC, is a Canadian musician and author. He is the drummer for the rock band Rush.Peart grew up in Port Dalhousie, Ontario . During adolescence, he floated from regional band to regional band in pursuit of a career as a full-time drummer...
used this standard to conclude his drum solos in live concerts from 2002-2004. On Rush's 2007-08 Snakes & Arrows Tour
Snakes & Arrows Tour
Rush began the Snakes & Arrows Tour to promote the album, Snakes & Arrows on June 13, 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia. The 2007 tour came to a close on October 29, 2007 at Hartwall Arena in Helsinki, Finland...
, he used an excerpt of Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
's "Cotton Tail
Cotton Tail
"Cotton Tail" is a 1940 composition by Duke Ellington. It is based on the rhythm changes from George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm". The first Ellington recording is notable for the driving tenor saxophone solo by Ben Webster. Originally an instrumental, "Cotton Tail" later had lyrics written for it by...
".
Appearance in film and television
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- The Grass HarpThe Grass HarpThe Grass Harp is a novel by Truman Capote published on October 1, 1951 It tells the story of an orphaned boy and two elderly ladies who observe life from a tree...
(1995 film version) - Harlem NightsHarlem NightsHarlem Nights is a 1989 comedy-drama crime film starring Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. The film also featured Michael Lerner, Danny Aiello, Redd Foxx, Della Reese and Murphy's brother Charlie Murphy...
- EnigmaEnigma (2001 film)Enigma is a 2001 British film about the Enigma codebreakers of Bletchley Park in World War II. The film, directed by Michael Apted, stars Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet. The film's screenplay was by Tom Stoppard, based on the novel Enigma by Robert Harris...
- The English PatientThe English PatientThe English Patient is a 1992 novel by Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje. The story deals with the gradually revealed histories of a critically burned English accented Hungarian man, his Canadian nurse, a Canadian-Italian thief, and an Indian sapper in the British Army as they live out...
- CNN Interview
- Reveille with BeverlyReveille with BeverlyReveille with Beverly is an American film starring Ann Miller, Franklin Pangborn, and Larry Parks directed by Charles Barton, released by Columbia Pictures, based on the Reveille with Beverly radio show hosted by Jean Ruth Hay...
- Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!!)