A Call to Assembly

"Willie Ruff has carved a life out of music and learning. They have shaped all his labors and his joys: in his boyhood in poor, rural Alabama; in performances with Lionel Hampton, Miles Davis, and other jazz giants; as a performer with the 'Duo, ' teamed with his longtime friend and sidekick, pianist Dwike Mitchell; and through his years as a professor of music at Yale University. Wherever he happened to be, Willie found the best teachers, like Mrs. Nance, the bass drummer at the Sanctified Church, whose right arm had the 'churning motion of a set of steam locomotive wheels, ' and Pete 'the Poet' Lewis, a virtuoso horn player who taught him how to 'breathe in a big ball of air, but gently blow out a long, long thread.' From the all-black army base where he learned to play the French horn through his school days on scholarship at Yale University and his renowned career as a horn and bass player, Willie Ruff tells his story in a voice that is warm with a love for all great music and a fond admiration for the teachers who showed him the way."--Book cover