Dance (Juba) is the fifth piece from Dett’s piano suite In the Bottoms (1913) and was one of his most well known pieces. The work was performed and recorded by Percy Grainger, a fact that was used as marketing on the cover of the 1918 publication by Clayton F. Summy Co., Chicago.

About the work, Dett wrote:

Juba is a social group-dance that involves stamping on the ground with the foot and following it with two staccato pats of the hands in two-four time. At least one-third of the dancers keep time in this way, while the others dance. Sometimes all will combine together in order to urge on a solo dancer to more frantic (and at the same time more fantastic) endeavours. The band usually consists of a single fiddler perched high on a box or table; who, forgetful of self in the rather hilarious excitement of the hour, does the impossible in the way of double stopping and bowing. A word of warning in regard to the tempo. Do not take it too fast! Much of the dancing in the river bottoms is done with a grace and finish that a Presto tempo never could suggest.

R. Nathaniel Dett