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The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street
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The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street
The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street is a hot-jazz (dixieland) radio program that began on the Blue Network on February 11, 1940.
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 melody, peppering his remarks with slang: "The work opens with a tailgate sludge-pump smear and from there on is, to use a technical musical expression, solid in the gutter -- er, groove... a moss-covered classic that's old enough to vote!"
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) 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 Hazel Scott, 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. An early guest was Paul Nero, hot violinist -- in reality, Kurt Polnariov of the Pittsburgh Symphony.
Much of the low-key humor in Lower Basin Street was provided by scriptwriter Welbourne (Web) Kelley. Some of Kelley's witticisms, as delivered by the deadpan Dr, Gino, were often greeted with laughs and groans by the musicians on the bandstand. Kelley frequently kidded the men in the band, whom he referred to as "Dr. Henry Levine and his Eight Dixieland Draftees... drafted during the Civil War" or "Dr. Henry Levine and his Dixieland Philharmonic of eight illustrious jerks." Kelley also welcomed individual musicians: "We'd like you to take particular note of the middle chorus, played on a sludge pump by Prof. Fletch 'Bye Bye Blues' Philburn, Jr. He is our new tailgate trombonist." Kelley was especially fond of awful puns. When boogie-woogie pianist and historian (Mr.) Sharon Pease took to the keyboard to play an original composition, Hamilton prompted the pianist with: "Music, Maestro... Pease." Web Kelley reluctantly left the program in late 1941, when he became a scriptwriter for U. S. Navy radio programs.
A regular feature of Lower Basin Street was the "intermission commentator," who would either deliver a monologue or be interviewed by Dr. Gino at the program's halfway point. Sometimes it would be a musician or musicologist like the blind, tongue-in-cheek classical pianist Alec Templeton; or a faux-pedantic lecturer like Will S. Scott, radio humorist; or just an enthusiastic hot-jazz fan like Martin Hellman, captain of the New York Sanitation Department's Garbage Scow #14. Hellman became a favorite and made frequent appearances, as late as 1952. One 1943 session had Jackie Gleason, then a struggling nightclub comedian, as the intermission commentator. He delivered a comic monologue about a girl who ran off with a trumpet player, and collected $350 for the appearance. As Gleason biographer W. J. Weatherby related, "There were so many phone calls praising it as the funniest program listeners had ever heard that Jackie was invited back. 'Wait till I'm that desperate again,' he said."
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." 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." 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. Publicity photos for the engagement showed the orchestra members in period costumes and wearing powdered wigs.
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The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street
The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street is a hot-jazz (dixieland) radio program that began on the Blue Network on February 11, 1940.
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 melody, peppering his remarks with slang: "The work opens with a tailgate sludge-pump smear and from there on is, to use a technical musical expression, solid in the gutter -- er, groove... a moss-covered classic that's old enough to vote!"
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) 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 Hazel Scott, 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. An early guest was Paul Nero, hot violinist -- in reality, Kurt Polnariov of the Pittsburgh Symphony.
Much of the low-key humor in Lower Basin Street was provided by scriptwriter Welbourne (Web) Kelley. Some of Kelley's witticisms, as delivered by the deadpan Dr, Gino, were often greeted with laughs and groans by the musicians on the bandstand. Kelley frequently kidded the men in the band, whom he referred to as "Dr. Henry Levine and his Eight Dixieland Draftees... drafted during the Civil War" or "Dr. Henry Levine and his Dixieland Philharmonic of eight illustrious jerks." Kelley also welcomed individual musicians: "We'd like you to take particular note of the middle chorus, played on a sludge pump by Prof. Fletch 'Bye Bye Blues' Philburn, Jr. He is our new tailgate trombonist." Kelley was especially fond of awful puns. When boogie-woogie pianist and historian (Mr.) Sharon Pease took to the keyboard to play an original composition, Hamilton prompted the pianist with: "Music, Maestro... Pease." Web Kelley reluctantly left the program in late 1941, when he became a scriptwriter for U. S. Navy radio programs.
A regular feature of Lower Basin Street was the "intermission commentator," who would either deliver a monologue or be interviewed by Dr. Gino at the program's halfway point. Sometimes it would be a musician or musicologist like the blind, tongue-in-cheek classical pianist Alec Templeton; or a faux-pedantic lecturer like Will S. Scott, radio humorist; or just an enthusiastic hot-jazz fan like Martin Hellman, captain of the New York Sanitation Department's Garbage Scow #14. Hellman became a favorite and made frequent appearances, as late as 1952. One 1943 session had Jackie Gleason, then a struggling nightclub comedian, as the intermission commentator. He delivered a comic monologue about a girl who ran off with a trumpet player, and collected $350 for the appearance. As Gleason biographer W. J. Weatherby related, "There were so many phone calls praising it as the funniest program listeners had ever heard that Jackie was invited back. 'Wait till I'm that desperate again,' he said."
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." 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." 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. Publicity photos for the engagement showed the orchestra members in period costumes and wearing powdered wigs.