The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street was a weekly radio program that began on NBC's Blue Network in 1940. (The National Broadcasting Company originally had two radio networks, the Red and the Blue; the latter was sold off in 1942 and became the American Broadcasting Company - ABC - in 1945.) The show featured some of the finest jazz musicians of the day, and had two resident bands (which shared the same rhythm section) - Henry Levine's Dixieland Octet, whose leader was a former member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and Paul Laval's Woodwindy Ten. On the Society's debut album, which I present here, Levine's group was rechristened the "Barefooted Dixieland Philharmonic" - although, as can be seen in the slightly coffee-stained picture, the members are not only very much shod, but periwigged! For the Society's offerings, broadcast and recorded, were usually presented in a mock-serious format that poked fun at the stuffy classical music presentations of the day. The album even comes with a booklet mimicking those of the Victor Musical Masterpiece Series, with tongue-in-cheek analyses of each song (a PDF file of this booklet is included with the download).
NBC's Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street
1. Mood Indigo (with Dinah Shore)
2. Muskrat Ramble (with Sidney Bechet)
3. Runnin' Wild
4. Dinah's Blues (with Dinah Shore)
5. Shoemaker's Holiday
6. Basin Street Blues
Recorded November 11, 1940
Victor set P-56, three 10" 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC files, 65.08 MB)
Link (MP3 files, 40.36 MB)
For me, the last three sides are the most enjoyable. "Dinah's Blues" manages to work into its lyrics the names of the show's two corporate sponsors, NBC and its parent, RCA Victor; "Shoemaker's Holiday" is a delightful romp featuring the bassoon, and this arrangement of "Basin Street Blues," with its ending that spoofs Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony (the bass being the instrument left to finish the piece "in the doghouse, but good"), was apparently also the ending number on every broadcast.
