The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street

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.

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.

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.

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.

Variety reviewed the audition recording 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,[9] and finally settled with Hamilton.

[11] NBC looked to its established radio properties for possible conversion to television series, and The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street was on the list.

To gauge public interest, Lower Basin Street was revived as a Saturday-night radio series on April 12, 1952, as an "information and education" program sponsored by the U. S. Army Reserve.

The series did well enough for NBC to mount a live-TV special on June 15 -- 5:30 on Sunday afternoon -- with Bean, Levine, Harp, guest commentator Arthur Treacher, hot bagpiper Ross Gorman, and dancers Milton Kanen and Gene Myers.

Beginning in November 1940, RCA Victor recorded albums of 78-rpm discs featuring The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street.