Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Willie Henry Ruff Jr. was born September 1, 1931 in Sheffield, Alabama. He attended the Yale School of Music earning his Bachelor and Masters of Music by 1954.
He first met Dwike Mitchell in 1947 when they were teenaged servicemen stationed at the former Lockbourne Air Force Base in Ohio. Mitchell recruited Ruff to play bass with his unit band for an Air Force radio program. The two of them went on to later play in Lionel Hampton’s band but left in 1955 to form their own group, the Mitchell-Ruff Duo. They played as a second act to artists such as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie.
From 1955 to 2011 the duo regularly performed and lectured throughout the United States, Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Mitchell-Ruff Duo was the first jazz band to play in the Soviet Union in 1959 and in China in 1981. Chosen by John Hammond to be the bass player for the recording sessions of Songs of Leonard Cohen, an album first released in 1967. During those sessions, he and Cohen laid down the bed tracks for most of the songs on the album.
He is one of the founders of the W. C. Handy Music Festival in Florence, Alabama, was a faculty member at the Yale School of Music from 1971 until his retirement in 2017, teaching music history, ethnomusicology, and arranging. Willie was a founding Director of the Duke Ellington Fellowship Program at Yale, held a visiting appointment at Duke University, where he oversaw the jazz program and directed the Duke Jazz Ensemble and was on the faculty at UCLA and Dartmouth.
Over the course of his career he recorded as a soloist, in a duo and as a sideman with Quincy Jones, Bobby Hutcherson, Gil Evans, Benny Golson, Milt Jackson, Lalo Schifrin, Sonny Stitt, Clifford Coulter, Miles Davis and Jimmy Smith.
French horn and double bassist Willie Ruff, who played in the Mitchell-Ruff Duo with pianist for over 50 years, was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and has published his memoir A Call to Assembly: The Autobiography of a Musical Storyteller, is retired at 91.
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The Jazz Voyager
Just a short hop by plane from Ann Arbor, Michigan west to Chicago, Illinois for this year’s edition of their jazz festival, however, this Jazz Voyager, tired of planes, is going to take a leisurely four hour drive and catch some scenery along the way and round the tip of Lake Michigan to the Windy City.
If you’ve never been to the Chicago Jazz Festival, this is a perfect way to close out the summer! The city is featuring several stages presenting the likes of Ron Carter, Chico Freeman, Ari Brown, Dianne Reeves, Makaya McCraven, Billy Valentine and Juan de Marcos and the Afro-Cuban All Stars, with a host of other performers. Running from August 31 ~ September 3, the music starts at 11:00am, goes to 9:00pm and admission is free. I’ll be there all weekend.
More info at www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/chicago_jazz_festival5.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Todd Washington Rhodes was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky on August 31, 1899 and was raised in Springfield, Ohio. He attended the Springfield School of Music and the Erie Conservatory, studying as pianist and songwriter. After graduating in 1921, he began performing with drummer William McKinney in the jazz band McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, and played with Benny Carter, Coleman Hawkins, Fats Waller, Rex Stewart, Doc Cheatham, and Don Redman.
Leaving McKinney’s Cotton Pickers in 1934, he lived and played in Detroit, Michigan from then on. He formed his own small group in 1943, expanding it into the Todd Rhodes Orchestra by 1946. The orchestra made its first recordings for Sensation Records in 1947.
Turning more towards rhythm and blues music, the band became known as Todd Rhodes & His Toddlers, and their recordings were distributed by the Vitacoustic label. His instrumental Blues for the Red Boy reached number 4 on the R&B chart late in 1948, and the following year Pot Likker, made number 3 on the R&B chart. “Blues for the Red Boy” was later famously used by Alan Freed as the theme song for his Moondog radio show; Freed referring to the song as “Blues for the Moondog” instead of its actual title.
With his Toddlers, Rhodes also recorded Your Daddy’s Doggin’ Around and Your Mouth Got a Hole in It. After signing with King Records in 1951, he also worked with Hank Ballard, Dave Bartholomew, and Wynonie Harris. He featured singers such as Connie Allen, who recorded “Rocket 69” in 1952. After she left the band in early 1952, her position was taken by LaVern Baker. Rhodes made his last recordings in the late 1950s.
Developing diabetes, which was untreated for several years, pianist, arranger and bandleader Todd Rhodes transitioned following the amputation of a leg in Inkster, Michigan on June 4, 1965, at the age of 65.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
William Stevens Bryant was born August 30, 1908 in Chicago, Illinois and while growing up took trumpet lessons to little success. His first job in entertainment was dancing in the Whitman Sisters Show in 1926. He worked in various vaudeville productions for the next several years, and in 1934 he appeared in the show Chocolate Revue with Bessie Smith.
In 1934, he put together his first big band, which at times included Teddy Wilson, Cozy Cole, Johnny Russell, Benny Carter, Ben Webster, Eddie Durham, Ram Ramirez, and Taft Jordan. They recorded six times between 1935 and 1938 with Bryant sings on 18 of the 26 sides recorded.
Once his ensemble disbanded, Bryant worked as an actor and disc jockey. He recorded R&B in 1945 and led another big band between 1946 and 1948. During September and October 1949, he hosted Uptown Jubilee, a short-lived all-Black variety show on CBS-TV, airing on Tuesday nights. In the 1950s he was the emcee at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York.
Bandleader, vocalist, and disc jockey Willie Bryant, known as the Mayor of Harlem, transitioned from a heart attack in Los Angeles, California on February 9, 1964.
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Three Wishes
Reggie Johnson was asked by Nica of his three wishes if granted and what he answered with these three:
- “The first one would be to have the bass that I want – that’s a full-sized bass.”
- “And, well, the next would be to have my own group, and…”
- “To play with Miles would be the third! That’s all I want.”
*Excerpt from Three Wishes: An Intimate Look at Jazz Greats ~ Compiled and Photographed by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
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