Home Again Blues--Gene Rodemich's Orch., 1921
For those who claim that 1920s dance music wasn’t “real” jazz: Then what the heck is this? Brilliant Irving Berlin blues whose verse, fittingly, is in the standard 12-bar blues scheme. Then, a clever circle-of-fourths chorus, and we have the perfect vehicle for Rodemich’s semi-arranged (with plenty of improvisation) jazz performance. As in, the real item. One of the superb examples of early-1920s "hot” dance. It’s taken at a slow alla breve tempo—technically, cut time (or 2/2)—but the pulse is pure 4/4. Why gems like these are typically left out of the jazz-history narrative, I’ll never know.