Ralf Ruh

born in Winterthur/Switzerland, first learned to play the accordion before playing the drums at age 12. When he was 14 years old, hearing and seeing Oscar Peterson play jazz became a turning point in his life for him and made him teach himself to play the piano three years later. He played in Jesper Naur's trio "All Zurich Rhythm Section" before entering the Swiss Jazz School in Bern, where he studied with Billie Brooks (drums) a nd Günther Kühlwein (piano).

He performed with Peter Frei (CH), Günther Kühlwein (D), Heiner Althaus, worked as music arranger and drummer in various big bands, among them Victor Burghardt (HU), Jimmy Woode (USA), Sandy Patton (USA) und Eugen Cicero (ROM). He became a member of the “Bruno Steffen/Heiner Althaus Quartet”, and led his own Quartett “Jazz ahead”. In 1991 he graduated from the Swiss Jazz School. He went on tour with the “Wolfgang Obert Quartet” and the “Lukas Heuss-Quintet” (with Peter Schärli on the trumpet), bands who have dedicated themselves to the music of Cannonball Adderley. He has been playing the organ since 1995 in Trio- and Quartets, such as the “Ralf Ruh Hammond-Projekt” and “B 3 Legacy”.

Ralf moved to Berlin in 1998 and has since continued to be a highly respected jazz musician and a widly popular jazz teacher. He is the author of several textbooks on music theory and harmonics for the global-jazz-academy. He worked as a drummer in various bands, among them “The toughest Tenors” and the “Sebastian Wittstock-Trio”, and with the pianist Joe Haider. He played as pianist with Nathalie Kollo, he was a member of the “Groove Brothers”, and established the “Ralf Ruh Organ-Trio”. As a composer Ralf was commissioned to write the big band music for the official festivities around the "Tag der Deutschen Einheit" in 2004. With the Ralf Ruh Trio , he just recently released his most personal album, called "A Personal Suite".

Discographie:
Bruno Steffen/Heiner Althaus-Quartett "City of Glass"
Karin Gass "Das kleine Krokodil" (Jazz for children)
Dave Ruosch-Trio "Analogic 1"
Karl F.'s Jazz-Express "After all"
Christian Münchinger "Five of a Kind"
Cookbook "Standard Time"
Groove Brothers "Coming Home"
The toughest Tenors "What's happening?"
Ralf Ruh Trio "A Personal Suite"

contact: ralfruh@jazz-berlin.de
www.ralf-ruh.de