[MRL 335] Mitchell-Ruff - Strayhorn: A Mitchell-Ruff Interpretation

1972


Personnel
Willie Ruff - bass & French horn
Dwike Mitchell - piano



Side A
1. Take The 'A" Train - 4:28
2. Passion Flower - 5:24
3. Suite For The Duo - 12:23*

Side B
1. Chelsea Bridge - 4:23
2. Upper-Manhattan Medical Group - 3:50
3. Rain Check - 1:18
4. Lush Life - 6:25

Recorded 1970/71, Hollywood (*Recorded 1969 at a memorial concert at Lincoln Center, New York)


Phyl Garland Review in March 1972 issue of Ebony:

Those who wish to savor the genius of Strayhorn should cop a very special new recording, Strayhorn: A Mitchell-Ruff Interpretation (Mainstream MRL 335). Almost everything about it is unusual. First of all, due recognition has evaded two fine artists heard here - Dwike Mitchell, a piano virtuoso and Willie Ruff, a bassist and one of the very few who can play jazz on the difficult French Horn. They have recorded infrequently and their finest album, The Catbird Seat (Atlantic 1374), is out-of-print though it wows all who hear it. Here they offer a sensitive and artistically superb rendition of Strayhorn's best-known works, including Lush Life and others mentioned here. More importantly, this album features a previously unknown suite for French horn and piano that the little one composed especially for this duo. It is exquisite in its simple beauty and the interpretation is quite worthy of the master who created it.

AMG Review by Ken Dryden

Although Dwike Mitchell and Willie Ruff have worked together as a duo for decades, their recordings have been sporadically available, including these early-'70s sessions first issued by Mainstream. Their program focuses exclusively on the works of Billy Strayhorn, who was so impressed with their performance at the now defunct Hickory House that he wrote "Suite for the Duo" specifically for them. Mitchell's solo interpretation of "Take the 'A' Train" is a virtuoso affair that suggests Oscar Peterson at times. Ruff's majestic French horn, with beautifully held long notes, is the centerpiece of "Passion Flower." The aforementioned "Suite for the Duo" is unlike anything else in Strayhorn's vast output, beginning with a strident prologue featuring French horn and piano, including a middle segment with a complex blues piano theme, and finishing dramatically with Ruff returning on French horn to join Mitchell. The flip side of the record focuses exclusively on well-known Strayhorn works, with a gorgeous solo piano arrangement of "Chelsea Bridge," an unusually slow but effective piano/French horn duet of "U.M.M.G.," a playful miniature of "Rain Check," and a haunting take of "Lush Life," the latter in which Ruff's French horn steals the show. While a few of these tracks have been compiled with various reissues of a 1971 concert by the Mitchell-Ruff Duo with Dizzy Gillespie, the full album has been unavailable since the demise of Mainstream. Highly recommended.