Willie Ruff (born September 1, 1931) is an American jazz musician, specializing in the French horn and double bass, and a music scholar and educator, primarily as a Yale professor from 1971 to 2017.

He was born in Sheffield, Alabama. Ruff attended the Yale School of Music as an undergraduate (Bachelor of Music, 1953) and graduate student (Master of Music, 1954). 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 servicemen stationed at the former Lockbourne Air Force Base in Ohio; Mitchell recruited Ruff to play bass with his unit band for an Air Force radio program. Mitchell and Ruff later played in Lionel Hampton‘s band but left in 1955 to form their own group. Together as the Mitchell-Ruff Duo, they played as “second act” to artists such as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie. From 1955 to 2011, the duo regularly performed and lectured in the United States, Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Mitchell-Ruff Duo was the first jazz band to play in the Soviet Union (1959) and in China (1981). Mitchell died in 2013.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojzxeFofNTQ