[Dixielandjazz] Bebe and Beebe

[Anton Crouch]

Hello all

Thanks to Bill H we now know that Coslow & Silver's 1923 "Bebe" is a
different composition to Jimmy Dorsey's 1929 "Beebe". I should have
waited before sticking my foot in my mouth and concluding that they were
the same.

For the discographically inclined (all 4 of us), it can be noted that
Robert Stockdale also gets it wrong in "Tommy Dorsey on the side",
Scarecrow Press, 1995. The index of titles (page 414) shows Coslow &
Silver as the composers of "Beebe".

As an aside, does anyone agree with me that Bud Freeman's "The Eel" is
similar to "Beebe"?

But, to what do the names refer?

"Bebe" could be a reference to the actress Bebe Daniels but, as Nancy G
points-out, "bebe" is Spanish for "baby" and it is more likely that the
song is about a girlfriend.

"Beebe" is a mystery. I have Herb Sanford's "Tommy and Jimmy: the Dorsey
years", Ian Allan, 1972 but the work has no title index and I haven't
found any mention of "Beebe" in the text. This is not surprising because
the book is rather scrappy in its handling of the years 1927 to 1934.

Is "Beebe" a person or a place? If a person, he/she is presently 
unknown. I can find only one town named "Beebe" in the USA - Beebe, 
Arkansas. Did Jimmy Dorsey ever go there?

A further aside - in numerous articles on Jimmy Dorsey on the web, there
are references to the movie "Lost in Harlem". It's a typo which has
(like a mutated gene) spread far. The correct title is "Lost in a harem"
- an Abbott and Costello movie from 1944!

All the best,
Anton