Ruby Braff - Biography

Reuben "Ruby" Braff (March 16, 1927 – February 9, 2003) was an American jazz trumpeter and cornetist. Jack Teagarden was once asked about him on the Gary Moore TV show and described Ruby as "The Ivy League Louis Armstrong."

Braff was born in Boston. He was renowned for working in an idiom ultimately derived from the playing of Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke.

He began playing in local clubs in the 1940s. In 1949, he was hired to play with the Edmond Hall Orchestra at the Savoy Cafe of Boston. He relocated to New York in 1953 where he was much in demand for band dates and recordings.

He died February 10, 2003, in Chatham, Massachusetts.

Discography

As leader

• You Brought a New Kind of Love (Arbors Records)
• Variety Is the Spice of Braff (Arbors Records)
• I Hear Music (Arbors Records)
• Watch What Happens (Arbors Records)
• Music for the Still of the Night (Arbors Records)
• The Cape Godfather (Arbors Records)
• Ruby Braff and Strings: In the Wee Small Hours in London and New York (Arbors Records)
• Born to Play (Arbors Records)
• You Can Depend on Me (Arbors Records)
• Being with You (Arbors Records)
• Live at the Regattabar (Arbors Records)

As sideman

With Scott Hamilton and Dave McKenna

• Controlled Nonchalance at the Regattabar,Volume 1 (Arbors Records)
• Controlled Nonchalance, Volume 2 (Arbors Records)

With Ralph Sutton

• Remembered (Arbors Records)

With Ellis Larkins

• Ruby Braff and Ellis Larkins: Calling Berlin, Vols. 1 & 2 (Arbors Records)
• Ruby Braff and Ellis Larkins: 2 Part Inventions in Jazz, (Vanguard/Pye)

With Dick Hyman

• America, The Beautiful (Arbors Records)
• Ruby Braff and Dick Hyman Play Nice Tunes (Arbors Records)

With Pee Wee Russell

• The Individualism of Pee Wee Russell (1952)
• A Portrait of Pee Wee (1958)

With George Wein

• Wein, Women and Song and More, George Wein Plays and Sings (Arbors Records)

External links

• Ruby Braff Biography