Word: ruff
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...last week two topflight U.S. Negro jazzmen just back from a month-long trip behind the Iron Curtain had news that the Russians not only know all about U.S. jazz, but play it with fervor whenever Big Brother is not looking. Jazz Pianist Dwike Mitchell, 29, and Bassman Willie Ruff, 28, came home amazed: "They have a real feel for our music...
Undercover Cats. Musicians Mitchell and Ruff have the credentials to know. Both are fine classical musicians (Mitchell played with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Ruff has a B.A. and M.A. from Yale) who formed a jazz duo and split their time between lectures and nightclub dates. In Russia, traveling with 30 members of the Yale Russian Chorus on an informal tour, the pair made contact with the young musicians of the Moscow Conservatory, gave an impromptu concert, and were introduced around to Russia's undercover cats...
Break Out to Bop. Russia has always been a musical nation, so it came as no surprise that the Russians played well. The stunner was how closely the Russians caught the sense of the music, particularly the sad throb of the blues. There were times, says Ruff, "when the renditions came close to eloquence." Where the Russians fall short is on improvisation. After one demonstration at which Ruff and Mitchell improvised around a current Russian song, a young man asked for the score. "They couldn't understand." says Mitchell, "that except for the basic chords...
...jazzmen are convinced that the Russians will some day break out and really start bopping. Says Ruff: "The spirit is there, and I'm sure that once they feel free to really let go, they'll start adding their own bars. They're starved for something...
Caviar. In Moscow's Mayakovskaya Square, 30 Yale students on a determined good-will expedition sang songs, answered questions about the U.S. in serviceable Ivy League Russian. Over at the usually solemn Tchaikovsky Conservatory, two members of the Yale group, U.S. Jazzmen Dwight Mitchell (piano) and Willie Ruff (bass), fractured a cheering, stomping crowd of Russians. In Manhattan, customers waited in long lines to buy tickets for the Russian Music and Dance Festival, scheduled to open this week at Madison Square Garden...