Performing Ruff played in the Mitchell-Ruff Duo with pianist
Dwike Mitchell for over 50 years. Mitchell and Ruff first met in 1947, when they were teenaged Mitchell and Ruff later played in
Lionel Hampton's band but left in 1955 to form their own group. Ruff was chosen by
John Hammond to be the bass player for the recording sessions of
Songs of Leonard Cohen, an album first released in 1967. During those sessions, he and Cohen laid down the bed tracks for most of the songs on the album. Ruff was one of the founders of the
W. C. Handy Music Festival in Florence, Alabama. The first festival was first held in 1982.
Teaching Ruff was a faculty member at the
Yale School of Music from 1971 until his retirement in 2017, teaching music history,
ethnomusicology, and arranging. Ruff's classes at Yale, often with partner Dwike Mitchell, were free-flowing jam sessions: roller-coaster rides through the colors of American Improvisational Music. The duo could play in the style of most notable jazz artists and related styles. They had a large repertoire. Ruff was founding Director of the
Duke Ellington Fellowship Program at
Yale, a community-based organization sponsoring artists mentoring and performing with Yale students and young musicians from the New Haven Public School System. The program was founded in 1972 as a "Conservatory Without Walls" From 1976 to 1977, he held a visiting appointment at
Duke University, where he oversaw the jazz program and directed the
Duke Jazz Ensemble. Ruff was also on the faculty at UCLA and Dartmouth. ==Awards==