One O'Clock Lab Band is an ensemble of the Jazz Studies division at the University of North Texas College of Music in Denton, Texas. Since the 1970s, the band's albums have received seven Grammy Award nominations, including two for Lab 2009. Steve Wiest directed the band from 2008 to 2014. Jay Saunders became interim director in 2014. The One O'Clock Lab Band is the highest of nine lab bands at the college. Each band is named for its hour of rehearsal and each contains 19-pieces: five trumpets, five trombones, five saxophones, piano, guitar, double bass, and drums. The One O'Clock band evolved from an extracurricular stage band founded in 1927 into a curricular laboratory dance band in 1947 when North Texas began its jazz degree program. History Beginning in 1927, faculty member Floyd Graham began directing and emceeing Saturday night stage shows at North Texas State Teachers College, planning the programs and holding auditions every Saturday afternoon for prospective entertainers. As early as 1923, WBAP in Fort Worth broadcast a nationally syndicated show of the stage band on Friday nights. These performances were directed by James Willis Smith, professor of mathematics at North Texas from 1908 to 1927. Students in the Stage Band included Ann Sheridan, Joan Blondell, Louise Tobin, actress Nancy Jane Gates, and the Moonbeams. "Lab Band" is the shortened form of "Laboratory Dance Band", a name given by founding director Gene Hall in 1946. "Laboratory" suggested experimenting in different configurations: band, choir, orchestra, chamber groups, and keyboard and guitar ensembles. During the 1960s, the word "dance" was removed to reflect an interest in different kinds of big band music, and "One O'Clock" was added by Leon Breeden. The academic degree Dance Band remained until 1978, when it was renamed Jazz Education, then Jazz Studies in 1981. When Breeden became band director in 1959, there were four lab bands, and they were called "units": One O'Clock, Two O'Clock, Three O'Clock, and Five O'Clock. The Two O'Clock was the premier band, known as Laboratory Dance Band A. The Aces band was directed by Floyd Graham. The band evolved out of the Saturday Night Stage Shows that were presented weekly from 1927 to 1961. Every year from 1962 to 1970 the Aces traveled and performed with other acts for civic organizations, veterans' hospitals, on WFAA radio, and at military bases in Texas. Willis Conover, jazz host on Voice of America,