It was not by accident, perhaps, that the yachting cap became Count Basie's signature topper.

Count Basie got around. And wherever he went, he went in style.

"He had keys to any major city," says Adriana Cuervo, head of archival collections and services of the John Cotton Dana Library at Rutgers University - Newark.

At least 10 keys to the city, in fact, are in the keeping of the Institute of Jazz Studies, housed in fourth floor of the library. Last June, the institute was bequeathed some 800 discrete items from the estate of the late, great jazz bandleader, born August 21, 1904 in Red Bank.

The Basie archives, a crown jewel of the institute's holdings, contains letters, photographs, contracts, telegrams, trophies, honorary degrees, gold records, Grammys (Basie was the first African-American artist to win a Grammy, in 1958), dress suits, musical scores, plaques and honors of all kinds.

"He got any award under the sun," Cuervo says. "I kind of wonder, if we showed up to Memphis and we had the key to Memphis, what kind of perks we would get."

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There are larger items as well, now stored offsite: a rocking chair, a Hammond B3 organ. And of course several of the famous yachting caps, which Basie began to wear at his gigs starting around 1964.

"He's a global icon, and still extremely popular," says Wayne Winborne, executive director of the Institute of Jazz Studies.

It seems natural — inevitable — that Basie, a homegrown Jersey icon, should have his archives in the Garden State. But it happened almost by accident.

Credit a modern day jazz icon: Branford Marsalis, brother of Wynton, one of the world's premier saxophone players and bandleaders. Marsalis, in the summer of 2017, was working as a consultant for the Basie estate, which had been looking for a home.

"I've known Branford for a long time," Winborne says. "And he told them, 'No, no, you need to call the Institute of Jazz Studies. That's the only place for it.' It was a great endorsement of the history we've done here. And so Branford called me in the middle of the day, and he said, 'Is it OK, I passed your number to this person?' My response was, 'Is that a trick question? Sure!'

The Institute of Jazz Studies, established in 1952 (it moved to its Newark home in 1967) has other such collections in its care. Pianist Mary Lou Williams, saxman Benny Carter, and vocalists Abbey Lincoln and Annie Ross are among the jazz greats who have archives at the institute.

Such collections are invaluable for scholars; they've also furnished material for exhibits and retrospectives.

But Count Basie is easily its biggest catch — not just because Basie is one of the greatest names in jazz, up there with Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, but because of Jersey pride.

Red Bank, his hometown, has a theater and a street named for him. Camden can also claim a piece of him. In the late 1920s Basie — not yet fronting his own band — made 10 recordings there on the Victor label (which later became RCA).

"This is one of the largest collections we've acquired in the last 10 years, both in size and significance — both because of Basie being a New Jersey native, and because of the sheer amount of materials in the collection," Cuervo said. "It's really a large swath of Basie's life."

Basie, born William James Basie in 1904, got his musical start listening to the players at the long-gone Palace Theater on Red Bank's East Front Street. He honed his craft in New York and Texas. But it was in Kansas City, as pianist to the Bennie Moten Band, that Basie began to reach a national audience.

Radio broadcasts introduced him to millions; he made a triumphant return to New York in 1937, where his band became famous not only for its "jumping" swing sound but for its great sidemen and singers.

Among the big names associated with the Basie band over the years: saxman Lester Young, trumpeters Harry "Sweets" Edison and Buck Clayton, and singers Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Jimmy Rushing, Joe Williams, Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra. Tunes like "One O'Clock Jump," "Jumpin' at the Woodside," and "April in Paris" became Basie standards, known all over the world.

"His music is amazing, if you really listen to it," says Grammy-winning jazz writer and historian Daniel Morgenstern, former director of the Institute of Jazz Studies.

"He was a master of setting tempo," Morgenstern says. "The tempos of his band were terrific. Basie was a very original pianist. He could play all over the keyboard, but he decided to be very economical and very rhythmic. He had a signature style, you could recognize him anywhere. And he was a great bandleader because he knew how to pick his sidemen."

Jerseyan by birth, world-traveler by nature, Basie was most identified with the Kansas City sound: an earthier, more blues-based take on jazz that was to become very influential.

Kansas City pianists were more likely to be rough-and-tumble boogie-players like Pete Johnson than suave soloists like Duke Ellington. That rhythm — and that blues — became part of Basie's signature sound. Some of his classic tunes, like "Every Day I Have the Blues" (vocals by Joe Williams) actually come to the very doorstep of rhythm-and-blues. In that sense, Basie could be considered — among many other things— a sort of transitional figure between jazz and rock.

"He was coming out of the Kansas City sound, which really had an emphasis on rhythm and swing and being able to dance," Winborne says.

The Institute is still going through the Basie material: boxes and boxes of it. Eventually some of it is liable to go on display in places like the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, or the nearby T. Thomas Fortune House (a museum, opening in May, in the former home of a legendary African-American newspaper editor).

Meanwhile, they keep discovering new gems. One that especially took Winborne's fancy: a letter from Frank Sinatra, sent to Basie while he was in the hospital.

"It was something like, 'Hey man, that's no way for a cat to act, get well soon, your boy singer, Francis Albert,' Winborne said. "And man, I just think that's the coolest thing. For him to show that kind of respect. I love that familiarity, that love, between them."

Email: beckerman@northjersey.com; Twitter: @jimbeckerman1