John and Fran Larch were the hosts, made all the arrangements, directions,

etc. All I did was get a band together, which included John playing piano.

The Battle Ground is operated by the Tippecanoe Historical Association,

which also operates the Fowler House Museum in Lafayette (local history)

and the Feast of the Hunter's Moon (October 13-14, 2001) which is a mammoth

festival re-enacting the Harvest Festival that took place in French &

Indian days at Fort Ouiatenon, the first fort in Indiana, just south of

Lafayette. More info at http://www.tcha.mus.in.us/

The band:

John Larch played an electric piano, a real comedown from his Packard grand

piano. It is a beautiful instrument made in Fort Wayne by a company that

began long before another, unrelated Packard started building cars in Ohio.

John is a fabulous musician who can immediately play anything he hears ...

and play it with complex jazz chords. I can do that too, but only if I also

have the sheet music, and practice it about 1,000 times.

Geoff Davis, from Nobelsville, played trombone, tenor banjo, tenor guitar,

and ukulele and sang lead on vocals. Geoff teaches at the Key School, an

innovative Indianapolis public grade school. His father was a heating

engineer who worked for Phil Hedback(sp?), a mainstay in the Indy CCCA. It

was not unusual for Geoff's dad to drive home in a Hedback Packard or Lincoln.

The other band members were Kathryn Clark on occasional spoons, Howard

Vogel on stand-up bass, guitar, and baritone ukulele, and me on plectrum

banjo, plectrum guitar, and baritone ukulele. Kathy is studying piano, but

is an accomplished spoons (and bones) player, it's a actually lot more

difficult than it looks. Howie Vogel and I have played in a variety of

Lafayette area bands over the past twenty plus years. We've always liked

"novelty" tunes, the nutty songs particularly popular in the 20s and 30s by

bands such as the "Hoosier Hotshots," but we've never been able to find

anyone else nutty enough to have similar musical interests. Then we met

Geoff this summer, who actually teaches novelty jazz tunes to

ukulele-playing grade schoolers in the "Key School Strummers."

We have since sent a lot of email back and forth with info on obscure,

goofy old songs such as "Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go With Friday on

Saturday Night?" but logistics have made it difficult to get together to

play. We've only "jammed" three times before Sunday, the third being

Saturday evening at John Larch's house. It was the first time any of us

played with John.

The band Howie Vogel and I are in plays 30s swing & jazz, which would have

been appropriate, except that the other three guys had commitments on

Sunday. The John Gambs tour therefore became a reason to bring the "3rd

Satchell Novelty Jazz Band" out of the closet. We certainly had a great time.

This is way, way too much info. Feel free to cut it to "John Larch and some

new friends provided the musical background."

Howie Clark