I was in my regular watering hole last night; the resplendent Royal Oak at Little Tarvin, where good jazz can be heard every Sunday. Last night the pianist astonished me by saying "I'm going to play a number called Chevy Chase".

It turned out not to be the Northumbrian pipe tune/ballad air of that name, but a composition by the American ragtime pianist Eubie Blake. According to the guy who played it last night, this Chevy Chase celebrates a district of New York.

I listened intently, as you can imagine, but could detect no resemblance at all to the Northumbrian Chevy Chase. Even so, there's an awful coincidence there. I can't help entertaining the thought that Blake might have run across the tune somewhere and somehow used its structure as the basis for his own composition.

Does anyone have any ideas, thoughts, speculations ?