Emanuel Ruffler
Biography
Mr Ruffler has been working in a variety of styles and settings since his arrival in New York from his native Germany. The wider public was first introduced to his musical aesthetics at the 1998 Thelonious Monk Composers Competition – Ruffler’s winning composition “Lava” was performed to a full house at the Smithsonian. The music had a uniqueness which the Times dubbed “a sign of the state of jazz”. But his compositions found an interest far beyond the Jazz audience earning the 1998 Grand Prize of the Thelonious Monk Composer’s Competition.
In 2003 Meshell Ndegeocello released “Aquarium” which Ruffler wrote with Sabina Sciubba of the “Brazilian Girls”. Just one year earlier his sound design for “Flex City” was placed in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His innovative use of sound caught the attention of fashion designer Emanuel Ungaro in 2001 – Ruffler subsequently produced music for the perfume commercial “Desnuda”. As a sideman Ruffler has performed with drum legend Joe Chambers at Lincoln Center and he was recently heard with Cindy Blackman’s new group “Explorations”. He has also been performing with Don Byron, An
Nightflight is Pianist and Composer Emanuel Ruffler’s first release as a leader for Pursuance Records and it features some of today’s most exciting jazz instrumentalists. The album contains 11 stunning compositions that draw you in with their simplicity and keep you coming back to explore their depth and detail. A hard driving rhythm is provided by veteran drummer Gene Jackson, whose longtime association with Herbie Hancock is relevant for this collaboration. On this rhythmic foundation Ruffler layers colorful harmonies and striking hornlines. Peter Watrous describes Ruffler’s music for the New York Times: “He spreads a tablecloth of a melody over the background, separating the instruments, and he lets polyphony break out…”
