Chamber-Music Society

Chamber music is an art form whose devotees take it with sometimes painful seriousness. Ordinary folk almost feel that they should take off their shoes before they go in to listen. National Broadcasting Co. shares the general reverence, but last summer it began giving out "chamber music" that was different. Last week an NBC program, whose popularity had lifted it from a Sunday-afternoon to a Monday-evening spot (9 p.m. E. D. S. T.), started with a bland announcement:

"Greetings, Music Lovers--and that includes you, too, Toots. Once again you are tuned in on a concert by the no doubt world-renowned Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street--whose members have consecrated their lives to the preservation of the music of the Three Bs--Barrelhouse, Boogie-woogie and the Blues. Present with us on this solemn occasion: Mademoiselle Dinah Diva Shore, who starts fires by rubbing two notes together; Maestro Paul Laval and his ten termite-proof wood winds; Dr. Gino Hamilton, as our chairman and intermission commentator; and Dr. Henry Levine, with his Dixieland Little Symphony of eight men and no--Period. As the Society's special guest: Professor Louis Kievman, the long-haired musician who plays a bald-headed viola. . . . But the concert is now in progress. . . ."

The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street--named after a famed street in New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz--is devoted to two kinds of music, traditional "Dixieland" and modern hot. Trumpeter Henry Levine, who succeeded Nick La Rocca in the fabulous Original Dixieland Jazz Band of two decades ago, handles the New Orleans tunes, with his mostly brass octet. Paul Laval, an Italo-Frenchman (born Joseph Usifer), plays clarinet and saxophone--his occasional saxophone work with the NBC Symphony has earned Toscanini's bravos--and leads the ten wood winds in his own hot arrangements. Guests have included Pianists "Jelly Roll" Morton, Alec Templeton and Joe Sullivan, Blues Composer W. C. Handy, Violinist Kurt Polnarioff of the Pittsburgh Symphony (with his hair down), Conductor Frank Black (with a hot harpsichord). Official singer is pretty, sultry-voiced Dinah Shore, 23, who was born Fanny Rose Shore in Winchester, Tenn., changed her name because of puns. When old Composer Handy heard Dinah Shore send out his Memphis Blues, he wept, said: "It was never really sung before."

Jazz purists are no less vestal-vinegary than long-haired music lovers, and not much more numerous. (What the great public calls jazz is mere popular music. ) The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street is irreverent in both directions. Announcer Gene Hamilton ("Dr. Gino"), who ordinarily handles such programs as the NBC Symphony and the Firestone hour, solemnly voices puns, non sequiturs (written by Scripter Welbourn Kelley), identifies a composition as "Opus 33, First Door to the Left," or "a small-fry rhapsody with no particular point," or "a slightly undernourished D Minor." Vice presidents seem to fascinate the Society. Once Dr. Gino began: "And as we look at our program (printed on the back of an old vice president). . . ." The Society's signature is Basin Street Blues, which at the close is played in the manner of Haydn's Farewell Symphony, the musicians leaving one by one until only Professor Harry ("Grumpy") Patent is left, slapping his doghouse. For all its clowning, the Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street is rated, by jazzmen, as among the best jazz programs on the air.

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