The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street

The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street is a musical variety radio program which began on the Blue Network on February 11, 1940.^[1][2]

The program was created and hosted by NBC staff announcer Gene Hamilton, as a tongue-in-cheek satire of highbrow symphonic broadcasts hosted by Milton Cross. Instead of Cross's dignified commentary introducing each orchestral selection, "Dr. Gino Hamilton" would introduce a traditional hot-jazz (dixieland) melody, peppering his remarks with slang.

The music was performed by two house bands. Henry Levine, a former member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, led an eight-member dixieland combo; Paul Laval (later Lavalle, to avoid confusion with the French wartime traitor Paul Laval)^[3] led a 10-piece woodwind ensemble, with arrangements employing oboe, bassoon, and French horn. Each broadcast featured a vocalist: Dinah Shore was discovered on the Basin Street program; she was succeeded in turn by New York-based vocalists Diane Courtney, Dodie O'Neill, Dixie Mason, Linda Keene, Loulie Jean Norman, and Lena Horne.

Gene Hamilton invited guest artists to appear on Lower Basin Street, including Benny Goodman, Count Basie, W. C. Handy, Bobby Hackett, Lead Belly, Lionel Hampton, Jelly Roll Morton, Sidney Bechet, and Alec Templeton, among other famous names in the jazz world. Many leading musicians were fans of the show, and kept in touch with Hamilton by telephone to arrange guest shots.

The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street began as a sustaining (unsponsored) half-hour feature on NBC's Sunday-afternoon schedule (4:30 p.m. Eastern time). So many listeners wrote to the network expressing approval -- and asking to see the show in person -- that in October 1940 NBC gave Lower Basin Street an unsponsored, Monday-evening slot in its primetime schedule. Fans protested vigorously when the network sometimes pre-empted the program and even announced plans to cancel it. As Variety commented: "NBC has twice decided to fold the series, but each time has continued it in response to listener agitation."^[4] Hamilton mentioned this off-again, on-again status on the air: "Greetings, music lovers, and if we've been canceled again and you're not hearing this, please don't tell us."^[5] Hamilton was forced to leave the program in late 1941, when NBC reassigned him to its production department. He was replaced as host by announcer Jack ("Dr. Giacomo") McCarthy and then by the very man the series was burlesquing, Milton Cross.

As a sideline to the radio show, maestro Paul Lavalle brought a Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street stage revue to the Roxy theater in New York City, with radio host Milton Cross as master of ceremonies, beginning on February 3, 1943.^[6] Publicity photos for the engagement showed the orchestra members in period costumes and wearing powdered wigs.

After two years of running as a sustaining show, Lower Basin Street found a sponsor: the Andrew Jergens Company, manufacturer of health and beauty aids. With a budget enhanced by Jergens, the program could now afford more "name" guest stars. The format drifted away from Hamilton's original, intimate concept of hot-jazz jam sessions. Henry Levine's dixieland band was dismissed, and Paul Lavalle now fronted a big band. The show became a loud, brassy jamboree staged for large crowds. The Jergens advertising agency Lennen & Mitchell kept tampering with the format, and the program took a sharp nosedive. As Billboard reported during the show's last weeks: "It is said that the show, which has had several format changes in the past year, is a dead duck. The show had a high Hooper [rating] as a sustainer, but failed to come thru once it went commercial and the basic idea, hot jazz and sophisticated comedy, was junked. Many program men say that if the show had been left as it was, a lively session of hot jazz, it would have stayed up with the leaders."^[7] The show left the air in October 1944.