Music |
Willie Ruff: Gregorian Chant, Plain Chant, and Spirituals Recorded in Saint Mark’s Cathedral, Venice
By
Published: Jan 02, 2024
Category:
Classical
Willie Ruff died. He was 92, and The New York Times gave him a Great Man obituary. It won’t tell you more than I did in 2019; the paper and I pulled the same clips. What is impressive in both pieces is the arc of his life. He started nowhere, had no support when young (except for the US Army), and reached the heights. At the start of the year, it’s good to read of an inspiring life.
Willie Ruff, likely unknown to you, was a legend. He spent almost five decades on the music faculty of Yale. Although his concert instrument is bassoon, he also played bass — it’s a little known musical factoid that he was the bass player for the recording sessions of “Songs of Leonard Cohen.” And he played with just about every major jazz artist.
None of this might have happened if his elementary school didn’t have a special guest.
Ruff grew up in Alabama, in a house with no electricity. That meant no radio or music. “But there was always dancing, to silence,” he has said. “The dances made their own rhythm.” But W.C. Handy, who was from his hometown, came to Ruff’s school when Ruff was in second grade. He played his trumpet. He led the kids in singing spirituals.
“Handy brought a message that day. He told us how important it was to continue our education and hold up our heritage and our culture. He said that it’s not from royalty or from the highborn that music comes, but it is often from those who are the farthest down in society. He told us of our responsibility to treasure and honor our heritage and music. After he finished, all the children who were musically inclined were permitted to shake the hand of the man who wrote ‘St. Louis Blues.’ I was never the same boy again. I had to be a teacher.”
Ruff’s mother died. He lived with his father. He had an older cousin who enlisted in the army at age 17 with his parent’s permission. When his cousin returned, wearing a sharp uniform, he told Ruff: “All the things you’re doing here, you can do better in uniform. You’ll get better schooling in the army. You can do better than that little dinky band you play in.” Ruff asked, “How am I going to do it? I’m only 14.” His cousin said, “For a musician, you sure are dumb. Don’t you know how to write your daddy’s name?”
He played in an Army band. At 17, done with the Army, he applied to Yale. He got in. Studied with Paul Hindemith. And got more than a degree: “There were gin mills and nightclubs on practically every corner of New Haven during that time, as well as parties on campus, so I was playing jazz every weekend. There were 8 or 10 jazz bands just on campus.”
Jazz probably offers more opportunity for personal expression than any American music, but it was too narrow for Willie Ruff. He traveled widely — he went to Africa to study the Pygmies’ drum language — and learned eight languages (before a trip to China, he taught himself Mandarin Chinese).
It is just like Willie Ruff to take his French horn to Venice to record — solo — some of his favorite music: European classics and Southern spirituals. Ruff and Venice were an ideal marriage of musician and setting — the sweetest of all brass instruments in one of Europe’s most sacred spaces.
To hear this CD is to be humbled. And right away, at that. It’s not the technical mastery that’s so powerful, it’s the spiritual sincerity. This isn’t just music: it’s prayer echoing in a stone chamber, a collaboration involving Ruff, the composers and the anonymous believers who built this cathedral. [To buy the CD from Amazon, click here.]
There are a dozen short classical pieces, and then the CD takes a turn to the America South. “Were You There (when they crucified my Lord)?” seems almost spoken, and not because we happen to be familiar with the words. “Steal Away” starts with an extended, full-bodied note and then jumps an octave; who knew so few notes could have such great effect? “Go Down Moses” touches every emotion — sweet and shockingly sassy, almost as if Ruff were playing trombone, and then powerful and direct. This, you imagine, is how God told Moses what He wanted from him. And, finally, “Give Me Jesus,” which ends, fittingly, as the bells of St. Mark’s begin to toll.
This is quiet, contemplative music — and, at the same time, it’s incredibly exciting. It calms you and sharpens you at the same time. It works on you in ways you don’t understand, but which you trust will heal you. And then it does.
