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 in 1940. The magazine Radio Life described it as "one of radio's strangest offsprings... a wacky, strictly hep tongue-in-cheek burlesque of opera and symphony." The series made an unknown regular vocalist named Dinah Shore a national recording and radio star.

It was a weekly half-hour of jazz, played by leading practitioners of the day. The format was a dry satire of the stuffy symphonic and operatic broadcasts announced by the dignified Milton Cross. The Basin Street opening, intoned by announcer Jack McCarthy, usually went along these lines:

The society's low-key chairman, the witty Gene Hamilton (always introduced as "Dr. Gino Hamilton"), would then call the meeting to order, peppering his formal speech with slang: "There are those critics of the saxophone who say it is merely an unfortunate cross between a lovesick oboe and a slap-happy clarinet. To those critics we must say, 'Kindly step outside with us a moment' and 'Is there a doctor in the house?'" These off-center comments were actually scripted by Welbourn Kelley, but Hamilton's deadpan deliveries often made the musicians laugh out loud.

The program then delivered 30 minutes of blues and hot jazz, with Dr. Gino stepping in between numbers to deliver such comments as, "A Bostonian looks like he's smelling something. A New Yorker looks like he's found it."

Two resident bands provided the music. Henry Levine and His Dixieland Octet offered traditional "readings" of jazz standards such as "Farewell Blues," "St. Louis Blues," and "When My Sugar Walks Down the Street." Trumpeter Levine (born Harry Lewis in London, England in 1907), a former member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, was quite familiar with these arrangements. Paul Laval and His Woodwindy Ten (which included some of Levine's personnel) played the same type of music on more symphonic instruments, demonstrating that such instruments as oboe, bassoon, and celeste were equally capable of producing hot jazz. In 1943 maestro Laval (born Joseph Usifer in Beacon, New York in 1908) changed his surname to "Lavalle" to avoid association with then-notorious war criminal Pierre Laval.

Each week "Dr. Gino" Hamilton would feature a notable guest from the jazz world, either a musicologist or a performer. Such celebrated soloists as Sidney Bechet, Bobby Hackett, Jelly Roll Morton, and Benny Carter sat in with Levine's band. On one occasion Hamilton introduced a W. C. Handy tune, adding that if Mr. Handy was listening from his home in New York, it was hoped he would approve. Handy was indeed listening, and the delighted Hamilton invited him to appear on the following week's broadcast. On another occasion, probably at the urging of Hackett, comedian Jackie Gleason showed up with a monologue about jazz musicians. Gleason was paid $350 for this appearance, which was so well received by listeners that he was invited back to the program.

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