Gene Hamilton, then a staff announcer for the network, proposed a satire of the highbrow symphonic broadcasts hosted by the dignified Milton Cross.
The novelty was that these serious musicians would be playing traditional dixieland jazz, with a commentator burlesquing Cross's hushed tones and peppering his remarks with popular slang.
NBC allowed Hamilton to host and produce the program, which made its debut in February 1940 as The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street.
"[11] In November 1940, RCA Victor began a series of Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street 78-rpm record albums.
[12] Hamilton continued to serve the network whenever an announcer was needed, including a stint introducing straight symphonic broadcasts.
Hamilton adopted the same persona he had used on Lower Basin Street: "a bewildered character who tries to inspire appreciation for the classics" of the dixieland repertoire.
[14] Variety reviewed the audition recording of Dr. Gino's Musicale and found it to be "a direct throwback" to Lower Basin Street, with "virtually the same format, the same beat, and the same musical director [Henry Levine].
So much time had elapsed since Lower Basin Street's debut that NBC's legal staff wasn't sure who owned what,[16] and finally settled with Hamilton.
Hamilton returned to NBC to host a new revival of The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street, airing on Saturday nights, sustaining, beginning July 8, 1950.
[17] Hamilton was not involved with NBC's brief 1952 revival of Lower Basin Street, which featured rising nightclub comedian "Dr. Orson Bean."
[2] Hamilton and his wife, along with "a bevy of seasoned radio and stage troupers," formed the Footlighters, a stock theater company, in Nassau, New York, in 1946.