Iskra 1903

Paul Rutherford formed Iskra 1903 in 1970 with Derek Bailey and Barry Guy. All three musicians had worked together in larger groups, starting off with the 1966/7 edition of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. However, they had a strong desire to work as a percussionless trio. It's not that they were or are anti-percussion - each of them have subsequently worked in various settings with numerous percussionists - it’s just that they felt a need for this sort of instrumentation. Rutherford named the group after 'Iskra' (the Russian word for spark) which was the paper that Lenin edited before the Russian Revolution. The '19' indicates 20th century music, and the '03' is the number of performers. (There were occasions when the group became Iskra 1904 with the addition of Evan Parker, while Rutherford's larger groups have been known as Iskra 1912 and Iskrastra.) This first version of Iskra 1903 lasted about four years, during which time they were rightly considered to be one of the very finest groups around. It was, perhaps, the last long-term fixed-personnel group that Bailey worked in. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.