Instrumental History #7: A Buffalo Crossing (2002-2003)

A Buffalo Crossing Live at the Spitz, London, late 2003

Left to right: Fiona Stewart - Violin and sampler, Rich Davis - Piano, Moog and Percussion, Attab haddad - Oud and Percussion,

Ross Parfitt - Drums and Saxophone, Jay Rice - Bass, Rigsby Smith - Guitar, Percussion and Glockenspiel.

I formed A Buffalo Crossing (originally known as 'King Buffalo King') in late 2002 after advertising for musicians wanted. The intention was originally to play live versions of a collection of tunes i had been recording for the past few months but the group quickly became an entity unto itself. The forming of the group became a sort of dada excerise, in that i took on the first five people i thought had ability or an interesting take on things with less and less concern with how it would work as a whole. The music grew in a number of directions with interests from the members having some crossover, but this variety of interests was largely the reason for the inevitable split a year later. The group recorded 20 CD-Rs of material in rehearsal, some pre-planned, some improvisational as well as a couple of studio takes and an EP 'Die Funf Nummern EP' containing 'Funf' (Smith) and four of the fifteen reworkings of the tune that the group had created.

After the split, Ross Parfitt, Fiona Stewart and I became three quarters of an improvisational group we called 'The Heartfelt Four' before Fiona returned to her native Canada and to a number of groups including 'Reflectiostack' (http://www.reflectiostack.com/). Ross moved further into experimental music and performances and developed a greater interest in acoustics (for which he returned to study to involve himself in further) and I began to work on my solo project amongst other things.