In Dahomey - Other References To In Dahomey

Other References To In Dahomey

• Percy Grainger wrote a highly virtuosic concert rag entitled In Dahomey (Cakewalk Smasher), in which he blended tunes from Cook's show and Arthur Pryor's popular cakewalk number, A Coon Band Contest. In this tribute to contemporary African American music, the clash of the two tunes creates what has been called "a page of almost Ivesian dissonance". Grainger would have been able to see Cook's In Dahomey on stage in London in 1903, and it was then that he started composing his rag (Grainger completed the score some six years later, in 1909).