Suite Of Old American Dances was inspired after the composer heard a performance by The Goldman Band in 1948. The original title was Electric Park, an amusement park Robert Russell Bennett went to while growing up in Kansas City. Each movement of the work is based on a dance from the beginning of the twentieth century. The Cakewalk dance originated on the Southern plantations. The dance of “strut” was danced to jig-like banjo/fiddle music, usually done by a couple who, with a backward sway, strutted in a medium high step or low kicking fashion. Although the title of this dance suggests that its roots lie in Scotland, the Schottische is actually a German variant of several Bohemian dances that later developed into the polka. The schottische features quick shifts from foot to foot and striking of the heel. These movements resemble the Scottish reel and may have inspired the name. The dance came to the United States by way of England when polka dancing became the rage among continental society in the 1840s. The music for the early schottische was usually written in 2/4 time, and many describe the dance as simply a slow polka. The Western One Step is a somewhat misleading title. As Frederick Fennell points out, “The composer informed me that this is also a dance known as the Texas Tommy, an obviously bright-eyed tune with an equally bright-eyed tempo.” Little is known about the Texas Tommy, one of the obsolete forms of the one-step. This dance, from the early 20th century, is believed to have originated in brothels and saloons, where ladies of the evening were known as “tommies.”