Origins: Chevy Chase (Eubie Blake)

Subject: Chevy Chase
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 03:13 PM

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 ?

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase
From: Amos
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 03:33 PM

I believe Chevy Chase is a district in the DC area of the U.S., and the chances are Euby was thinking of that more than any Northumbrian tune. He would have thought Northumbrian was a model of sports car or something, I imagine.

A

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 03:43 PM

Awful coincidence? Hardly. There are numerous towns around this country that share their names cities and towns in other countries.

The Chevy Chase Rag was written in honor of Chevy Chase, Virginia just ouside of DC.

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase
From: Gary T
Date: 28 Aug 06 - 03:43 PM

Chevy Chase is a Maryland suburb of Washington D.C. that borders Bethesda (Md.), Silver Spring (Md.), and Washington. The name comes from a French term for fox hunt. It's certainly possible there are other locales with this name, although I don't know of any.

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase (Eubie Blake)
From: leeneia
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 10:12 AM

A chevy chase is a hunt and noisy and/or confused. My dictionary says the term comes from the Ballad of Chevy Chase, which derives in turn from Cheviot chase (hunt).

Now of course, it's a town name and the name of an actor. I've often wondered how the actor came by that name.

You can hear a good MIDI of Eubie Blake's Chevy Chase here:

http://www.trachtman.org/ragtime/

Eubie Blake probably never heard the pipe tune. (How many people have?) But he went to school, had a passport, put on a Broadway show, supported himself by music for many years, and appeared on the Tonight Show. We have no reason to suppose he thought Northumbria was a sports car.

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase (Eubie Blake)
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 10:44 AM

Hi Leeneia,

Thanks for the info and the MIDI. My knowledge of Eubie Blake is pretty limited, but I do know that he was musically literate, involved in show business etc. I agree it's inlikely that he ever heard the pipe tune, Chevy Chase but it is by no means impossible. The Northumbrian piper, Jack Armstrong recorded it in the 1920s, which is later than Blake's composition of course. But the piece has always been popular among Northumbrian musicians. Who's to say that he never met one ?

In fact, after posting my query, I remembered that the tune, Chevy Chase features in John Gay's Beggars Opera. An edition I have, dating from 1775, does not give the notations of the airs, but does specify their titles. However, I also have a facsimile (undated but doubtless later) which gives both melodies and titles. For that matter, Simpson, The British Broadside Ballad and its Music says the tune was used for over three dozen ballads before 1700, also that it is used in two other ballad operas, and that it appears no less than eight times in Durfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy.

I'd have said therefore that it was perfectly possible for Blake to have come across the tune in manuscript, and to have been sufficiently taken with this very beautiful air for it to inspire him into writing his own composition.

Like you, I see no reason to assume he was inspired by the name of a sports car.

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase (Eubie Blake)
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 11:09 AM

Hmmm.   Why does there seem to be a need to associate Eubie Blake with this Northumbrian tune?

Chevy Chase is a suburb of Washington DC. Blake was born in Baltimore, not that far from DC. Chevy Chase is a rather well known town in the U.S., and moreso if you live in the DC area. In his early days of performing, he traveled the East Coast. He wrote other tunes that he named after towns and locales (Charleston Rag, Baltimore Buzz, etc.)and as Fred mentioned - he could "detect no resemblance at all to the Northumbrian Chevy Chase".   It is highly unlikely (but not impossible) that Blake heard this obscure tune and decided to write his ragtime classic.

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase (Eubie Blake)
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 06:19 PM

Jack Armstrongs first recording was in 1949 - a 78EP called Chevy Chase/Rothbury Hills. There is also a documented connection to Hollywood and Burl Ives - who knows where that led?

The first available recording of the northumbrian smnallpipes was 1928 and featured Anthony Charlton (Pipes of Three Nations) it is not widely regarded as the eptiome of classic piping. A far superior and more valuable recording was made three months later featuring Tom Clough - the prince of pipers.

Getting back on topic, NSP tunes turn up in all sorts of places: Gustav Holst produced the most originaly titled "Piano Toccata - founded on the Northumbrian Pipe-Tune 'Newburn Lads'" in 1924. The tune is identifiable in there and it won't be the only that has escaped.

As for using the ballad tune as a theme for something more complex. That would work, I've seen a number of variation sets for it but all within the NSP world.

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase (Eubie Blake)
From: Kaleea
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 07:55 PM

I've been a fan of Mr. Blake for a long time. He lived to be 100, & wrote lots of rags & other Music most of his life. Seems like I recall hearing that he started organ lessons at 5 or 6. He certainly had a long career in Music! I've seen/heard him play, talk & sing on tv lots of times. It was always delightful.

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase (Eubie Blake)
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 11:04 PM

I'm with ya' Ron. Why the pipe tune connection seems to be important here I have no idea. I love trad and folk but I also love jazz and everything doesn't originate with ditties from the old world.

Eubie was great even in his old age and if anyone rememebers he and Gregory Hines together they will remember the love and admiration in both of their eyes for the other. Eubie's time was long but we lost Hines far too soon.......both a dancer extraordinaire and a pretty fair musicologist.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase (Eubie Blake)
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 06:17 AM

>Jack Armstrongs first recording was in 1949 - a 78EP called Chevy Chase/Rothbury Hills.<

Of course he did. Sorry, my mistake, although it would have been a single, not an EP.

>As for using the ballad tune as a theme for something more complex. That would work, I've seen a number of variation sets for it but all within the NSP world.<

Not being a musician I'm none too sure of the mechanics of recomposition, but I think you're right. As a matter of fact, Ewan MacColl was given to recasting his own melodies out of traditional tunes. EG., you'd never think it, but the Shoals of Herring, Freeborn Man and the tune which accompanies the leaving hospital song, from the radio ballad, The Body Blow were all developed from the melody for The Famous Flower Among Serving Men.

Incidentally, I'm not trying to make a case out for saying that Eubie Blake composed his Chevy Chase out of the Northumbrian original; merely that it strikes me as possible, and I was wondering whether anyone might know one way or the other.

Also, the fact that I can hear no resemblance between the two is neither here nor there. I can't hear any resemblance between the three MacColl tunes and TFFASM either.

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase (Eubie Blake)
From: Artful Codger
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 05:43 AM

People are probably most familiar with Eubie Blake from the songs "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Memories of You". (My favorite, though, is "My Handyman Ain't Handy No More".)

The Amherst Saxophone Quartet put out a record of Eubie's music: Eubie Blake: An American Classic. It includes "Chevy Chase". This record is sheer delight; when it's playing, you just can't feel bad. I also highly recommend William Bolcom and Joan Morris's record Wild About Eubie, though it's long out of print. Bolcom knows ragtime inside-out and no one plays better. If you can find any of his recordings of classic ragtime, SNAP THEM UP!

More on-topic: I strongly doubt any connection with the pipe tune. This is one of Eubie's most famous pieces, and in fact, it's one of the most famous rags of the era. If such a connection existed, mention of it would not be hard to find (and I presume you've googled.) I never ran across a hint in the years I was a ragtime junkie, even when I heard Eubie on interview-type programs playing this piece.

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase (Eubie Blake)
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 09:21 AM

While I admire people who research to find answers, I am also cautious of creating a theory and then trying to find information that will justify it. There seems to be very little reason to think that Eubie Blake heard what would (in this country and at that time)be an obscure pipe tune.

Blake lived less than 40 miles away from the well known town of Chevy Chase, Maryland. It is important to note that the two tunes have nothing structurally in common.   

It does concern me when someone throws a shadow of doubt on a subject when there is very little evidence or reason to assume there is truth to it. This is how urban legends and falsehoods are created.

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase (Eubie Blake)
From: leeneia
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 10:27 AM

This is the very place for me to insert a quotation from Confucius which I read in a book last night.

"Learning without thinking is useless. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

Don't be offended. I don't think that anyone here is doing either; I do think that Confucius is spot on when it comes to falsehoods and urban tales.

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase (Eubie Blake)
From: Artful Codger
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 05:21 PM

Eubie Blake wrote "Chevy Chase" in 1911. It was published in 1914, and helped establish his fame as a composer. Sadly, he sold the rights outright, and so lost out on subsequent royalties. (He quickly learned never to do so again.)

Subject: RE: Chevy Chase (Eubie Blake)
From: Mr Happy
Date: 03 Sep 06 - 11:02 AM

Royal Oak at Little Tarvin, where good jazz can be heard every Sunday.

Where is this, please?