Breaking the Silence Review by John Clark, Cornucopia, September 2001

Breaking the Silence is the newest CD by the Mitchell Ruff Duo, Dwike Mitchell on piano and Willie Ruff on bass and horn.

If you enjoy being surprised, you will probably enjoy this recording very much. The tunes are mostly familiar to all of us -- but they are arranged in such a way that you might not even recognize them immediately. Notice particularly the not-radical, but somewhat unusual, treatments of Autumn Leaves and Lullaby of Broadway (both as jazz waltzes).

Another surprise for me was the brilliant counterlines played by the horn on Lullaby of Broadway and Brahms' Lullaby (I plan to study those quite a bit and hopefully learn to write better counterpoint...).

One might call this a "music" recording as opposed to a "horn" recording, in that Willie plays horn on only five of eight tracks. However, the horn playing that you do hear is solid, in tune, superbly controlled, with an occasional touch of light vibrato and a beautiful sound that I would call "traditional." What I mean is that it's more like a "classical" than a "jazz" sound. Professor Ruff is also extremely adept at the use of the hand in the bell to bend notes and stop-open or open-stop within a phrase. It's a technique that you may have heard done clumsily or over- done elsewhere, but here it is always in good taste.

In fact, to say that good taste is synonymous with this, and all the Mitchell-Ruff work, is a gross understatement.

John Clark is a New York free-lance and jazz artist. The CD is available from Kepler Label, Meyer Communications, 510 Long Hill Rd, Guilford CT 06437 or at Willie Ruff's home page

A Call to Assembly - A review of Willie Ruff's autobiography

Gregorian Chant ... - A review of a recording at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice

Virtuoso Elegance - A review of CD Virtuoso Elegance in Jazz

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