Lovecraft once recalled his youth thus… “I had just as good a time as I ever used to have in youth listening to the concerts of Reeves’ American Band at Roger Williams Park with my grandfather. Old days …. old days……”

“Reeves’ American Band from Providence”, 1902.

Lovecraft was still occasionally attending similar concerts in the early 1930s…

“The amiable if not excessively profound Thomas S. Evans [Lovecraft’s Providence acquaintance, 145 Medway St.] – he of the dramatick & playwriting predilections – called me up & urged me to accompany him to a concert of the newly organised Providence Concert Band in historick Infantry Hall (now re-modedelled on the interior, tho’ still possesst of that nauseous Victorian belfry), & having no striking objection, I acquiesced. Not a bad series of sound-wave patterns – I rather like a good brass band, anyway, since I have not the musical taste to appreciate the Galpinian subtleties of highbrow orchestral symphonies.” — Lovecraft in a letter to Moe, March 1931.

The stand seen from across the lake at night…

Later Reeves fell apart due to personality clashes and was replaced by the Banda Napoli for a few years, and then more permanently by Fairman’s Band.